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Sunday, August 14, 2011

Forest and local level livelihood strategies


Forestland provides more than 40% of livestock nutrition as fodder and 80%  of  the major source of energy as fuel wood, which is mainly supply from forests,shrublands and land adjacent to the farms. Forest litter and dung is used to enrich farm soils, crucial for agriculture productivity. The annual consumption of supply of litter from two hill districts of Nepal was 2.3 metric tones per ha agriculture land (Malla, 2001). However, in recent years livestock number have been declining, partly due to reduction in forest and fodder resources and reduction in labor availability, which ultimately decreased the crop land yield in the hills of Nepal.

Agriculture is still the primacy source of earning for 63% of the population and operates in an environment characterized by low agricultural productivity and focus on subsistence agrarian production, both in the hills and terai. The area in forestland in agricultural land requires in the ratio of 1:2:8, with subsistence level farming (Jackson, 1994).

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