Nepal's Villagers Are Managing a Quarter of Its Forests

Established in 1995, FECOFUN is the umbrella network for Nepal's Community Forestry User Groups (CFUGs) — a model in which the government hands over degraded national forest land for local communities to protect, restore, and sustainably harvest. The federation now organizes members across all seven provinces and 77 districts, giving households a formal voice in forest policy while securing legal access to timber, fodder, and non-timber forest products. Nepal's community forestry program, among the largest in the world, has been widely credited with helping reverse decades of deforestation across the country's mid-hills.