Kankali Community Forest in Nepal

The Kankali Community Forest is located in the foothills of the Mahabharata Range in Chainpur Village Development Committee (VDC). Due to the volatile political situation during the year of 2046 B.S. in the country, the high encroachment in the forest and, the illegal harvesting of the woods, the Kankali Community Forest was once a degraded and almost like a naked forest and gone forever.
However, when the people living in the lap of the forest suffered the problems of landslides, the life for survival became complicated and the people began to migrate in other places. Hence, community realized the importance of biodiversity and took an initiation for the forest conservation since 2047 B.S. The Kankali Community Forest was once the headquarter of Chitwan district as well. The District Forest Office (DFO) of Chitwan on 2052 B.S. has legitimately handed the forest over the user community.
Presently, the total user members of the community forest are 1830 households, which covers all the (1-9) wards of Chainpur VDC. The user members of the forest having different ethnicity are Tamang, Darai, Chepang, Bote, Kumal, Brahmin, etc.