FECOFUN team had active participation during the International Conference on Revitalizing Community Forestry in the Era of Socio-environmental Crisis which was held on 4-5 March at Park Village Resort. On the first day of Conference, Birkha Bahadur Shahi, Senior Vice-Chairperson of FECOFUN, with welcome remarks in the inaugural session. Ganga Ram Dahal, PhD, Focal Person of Tenure Facility delivered a presentation entitled “Forest Landscape restoration (FLR) through community forestry: lessons from Asian countries”. He also moderated a Plenary event. Arjun Chapagain, PhD, presented on “Comparative Analysis on Community Forests in Nepal and their Influence on Forest Cover”.

On the second day of Conference, Sita Aryal, PhD, delivered a presentation entitled “Empowering local communities through forest-based enterprises, community forest rights and governance in Nepal”. She also moderated a session on “Forest-based enterprises: cases of success and failure in Nepal”. The session was chaired by the Birkha Bahadur Shahi, Senior Vice-Chairperson of FECOFUN. In the session, Tulsi Sangruala, FECOFUN Koshi Province Chairperson delivered a presentation entitled “Brief sharing on Eco-tourism enterprise of Jamunkhadi (success case)”. Ganga Bista, GESI Coordinator of FECOFUN, presented “Brief sharing on Furketari Mineral Water, Kaski (success case)”, on the behalf of Kalidas Subedi, FECOFUN Gandaki Province Chairperson. Then, Binod Sapkota, FECOFUN Bagmati Province Chairperson shared on the “Brief sharing on Saw-mill, Chaubas, Kavre (Failure case)”. Parbata Gautam, General Secretary of the program delivered her talk on the “Policy Analysis: Reason for successes and failure of forest-based enterprise”. The chair of the Session, Mr. Shahi, summarized with the complex challenges faced community forestry enterprises in Nepal.

A total of 16 representatives from FECOFUN including Birkha Bahadur Shahi Senior Vice Chairperson, Mohammad Kar Kha Vice chairperson, Parbata Gautam General Secretary, Shanta Neupane Treasurer, Tulsi Sangarula Chairperson of Koshi Province, Som Prasad Sharma Chairperson of Madhesh Province, Binod Sapkota Chairperson of Bagmati Province, Saraswoti Khadka Executive member, Parbati Nagarkoti District Chairperson of Bhaktapur, Anjana Nepali District FECOFUN Bhaktapur, Bindu Acharya District Chairperson of Kathmandu, Prem Ghimire District Chairperson of Lalitpur FECOFUN, Dr. Sita Aryal Executive Director, Dr. Arjun Chapagain Sustainable Forest Management Coordinator, Ganga Bista GESI Coordinator, and Shandesh Chaudhary IT & Admin Manager participated in the Conference.

Representatives from various organizations gathered to share lessons and insights from practitioners, professionals, policy actors, and researchers through plenary talks, presentations, and panel discussions. The conference had some 190 diverse participations from 11 nations, including India, Australia, Bangladesh, the Philippines, Laos, and others, making it a wonderful gathering to discuss on challenges and opportunities in community forestry. It was indeed an excellent event where experts, researchers, practitioners, and advocates of community forestry shared their collective work in-person. Over 39 oral presentations and 16 posters presentations on diverse themes including community forest right, governance, institutions, enterprises, silviculture and forest management among others, were observed in two days.