Geospatial information for sustainable food systems

Geospatial indicators assessment incommunity forests in Indeshowar Nepal

Year published: 23/12/2022

The Forest and Farm Facility (FFF)1 in Nepal focuses on strengthening the capacities of forest and farm producer organizations (FFPOs) to ensure inclusive governance and strategic intervention in policy dialogue through advocacy, business incubation and resilient livelihoods. The FFF Nepal program, led by Federation of Community Forestry Users Nepal (FECOFUN) in collaboration with the Ministry of Forests and Environment (MoFE), operates in the western region of the Churia landscape focusing on five districts (i.e., Makwanpur, Nawalpur, Nawalparasi, Kapilvastu and Dang) of Bagmati, Gandaki and Lumbini Provinces. A monitoring system is being operationalized to track progress of the FFF efforts using geospatial technologies. The results for selected FFF geospatial indicators are presented for the community forests in Indeshowar (Figure 1) where FFF is supporting planation of Walnut and Sichuan Pepper since June 2019. The total area of the community forests under FFF interventions in Indeshowar is about 54 ha with a mean elevation and slope of 1585 m and 21 degree, respectively. Total beneficiary households are 286 with a population of 1354. About 3 ha of community forest land was used as demonstration plot. Table 1 presents the initial results for selected indicators of accessibility, soil, land, forest and water resources within the area of interest.