past few years concerns the extension of CFUG rights over forest resources in the hills as well as in the Terai. Through FECOFUN, the legal provisions relating to community forestry were spread to areas where there were no prior donor-driven projects or where district forest offices (DFOs) were not as enthusiastic about community forestry implementation (in the Terai, for example). In addition, FECOFUN has played the role of CFUG watchdog in national and international policy arenas. FECOFUN’s awareness-raising activities have helped to enhance the political capital of CFUGs beyond the traditional patron–client relationship with the Department of Forests.
Successful scaling up of community forestry also required a nationwide over- haul of local DFOs, with an emphasis on the reorientation of forest officials. This approach enables DFOs and forest officials to reorient their skills toward co- management, extension, and assistance from their previous role as the dominant authorities and decisionmakers in forest management (Acharya 2002). Finally, scholars have further enumerated a number of specific conditions and factors that played a significant role in the successful evolution of community forestry in Nepal. These include
• the media projection of the crisis of Himalayan degradation and consequent international assistance (Gutman 1991);
• the inaccessibility of Nepal’s hill and mountain forests for commercial exploita- tion;
• the inability of the Forest Department to manage forests effectively, especially in the middle and high hills (Gilmour and Fisher 1991; Subedi 2006);
• the emergence of a multiparty political system in 1990 and consequent expansion of civil society spaces (Ojha 2006);
• the willingness of the elected government to legally empower local communities to manage forests (Ojha 2006);
• the presence of existing forest-based livelihood systems in rural Nepal and incen- tives for local people to participate in forest management for a range of forest products and livelihood opportunities (Gilmour and Fisher 1991);
• the presence of existing dense social networks and traditional models of collec- tive action around local forest management in Nepal (Fisher 1989; Chhetri and Pandey 1992);