By Indira Aryal
Kathmandu, Apr. 27: Nepal is already on a path to achieve one of the commitments made in the Second Nationally Determined Contributions (NDC) in the expansion of forest cover and its conservation.
As per the NDC, which has mentioned maintaining 45 per cent of the total area of the country under forest cover (including other wooded land limited to less than 4 per cent) by 2030, the recently released report showed that the forest cover has already reached 45.31 per cent, including 3.62 per cent other wooded land (OWL).
A recent survey showed that the forest cover in Nepal has increased by 1.7 per cent between 2000 and 2019. However, when the forest cover is combined with other OWLs, which can also be a part of forest, the global target of forest cover is already achieved with a total of 45.31 per cent. According to National Land Cover Monitoring System for Nepal (NLCMS), the forest cover was 43.56 per cent in 2000. The total forest area of the country has increased from 39.99 per cent (5915518 hectares) in 2000 to 41.69 per cent (6166766 ha) in 2019.
At the same time, cropland and grassland have decreased by 2.10 per cent and 0.68 per cent respectively during the period, said the NLCMS, which was recently released by the Forest Research and Training Centre (FRTC), under the Ministry of Forests and Environment.
According to the NLCMS, the primary land cover in the country is forest, followed by cropland and grassland.
Factors like grazing, shifting cultivation, illegal/selective logging, flooding and urbanisation are major causes of the shifting of land cover change in Nepal.
Secretary at the Ministry of Forest and Environment (MoFE) Pem Narayan Kandel said, “Policy, law, planning and programmes regarding the forest management and their implementation modality are successful in Nepal, which helps in increasing forest cover in the last 20 years.” Community-based forests and their management is one of the most important factors for the increasing forest land in Nepal, he said.
The government has classified the land into 11 different categories. Based on the NLCMS, the land has been categorised as forested land, agricultural land, grassland, bush, marshland, snow land, glacier, rock, flood land, shelter land and vegetation-less land.
According to Kandel, the government is successfully implementing policies related to forest management. “Our society has been shifting. It has been shifting into the use of clean energy instead of using forest materials in recent years, which also helps in increasing the forest land. Other important factors like agricultural land, grazing areas and OWL are also shifted into forest land, Kandel said.
In 2019, the forest was the dominant land cover with 41.69 per cent, followed by 24.21 per cent cropland and 13.27 per cent grassland. Around 20 per cent of land cover is occupied by snow, bare rock, OWL, glacier, riverbed, built-up, water body and bare soil in descending order. OWL increased from 3.57 per cent in 2000 to 3.62 per cent in 2019.
The report shows decreasing agriculture land but it is unclear whether the agriculture land has been converted to forest cover or other land, said Manjeet Dhakal, a climate change expert and Head of LDC Support Team at Climate Analytics (CA) and Director for Climate Analytics South Asia office. It might be possible to increase the forest cover due to abandonment of cultivated land. People who leave their original homeland due to international and external migration for various reasons and land left for many years can turn into forest and OWL, Dhakal said.
“Increasing forests can be taken as a positive result as they can store more carbon, timber exports can be minimised but replantation and conservation are important aspects of the long-term management of forests,” he said.
The study was carried out by the Forest Research and Training Center of the MoFE in collaboration with stakeholders including the Department of Survey and International Center for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD) and USAID.
Forest cover has increased in the Terai, Siwalik, and Middle Mountain regions whereas it has decreased in High Mountain and High Hill from 2000 to 2019.
In addition, OWL has increased in Terai and Siwalik regions whereas it has decreased in Middle Mountain, High Mountain, and High Hill from 2000 to 2019. Cropland is decreasing in all the physiographic regions.
Grassland has decreased in all physiographic regions except High Mountain.
-The Rising Nepal
