"International Journal of Geography, Geology and Environment"

Author(s): Utsab Thapa and Ram Asheshwar Mandal

Abstract: Forest inventory is a useful tool to show the status of the forest which supports policy makers and scientific community to understand the situation and find the intervention options to effectively manage the forest. However, there are several knowledge gaps to show the inventory practices in Nepal. Thus, this review was done aiming to assess the existing forest inventory systems of Nepal; challenges incurred to implementing forest monitoring; and way forward for future forest monitoring system. The international and national level published and unpublished literatures were collected and these were descriptively analyzed. It was found that Nepal has been practicing periodic national level inventory in every ten years and at the local level, community forests’ monitoring is practiced every year. The national inventory provides the overall status of forest of the country while the local level monitoring and evaluation show the status of community managed forests. However, lack of fund for inventory and incompatibility in findings, lacking the research alternatives, reliance on traditional technology, difficult geography of hilly terrain, problematic to accept the community based inventory practices in national inventory and limited budgets as well as insufficient technical capacity are some important challenges in inventory practices in Nepal. Thus, the establishment of forest research unit at local level; recognizing and incorporating the community based inventory practices, application of modern technology in forest inventory, multi-stakeholder collaboration, unified monitoring system and application of Near Real Time (NRT) monitoring practice can importantly play a vital role in the national inventory. The review will be useful milestone to design the forest inventory at national level.

Pages: 47-54 | Views: 456 | Downloads: 82

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