Despite a very high potential, forestry sector of Nepal is mostly considered as underutilised in terms of its economic benefits. If these resources are utilised in sustainable manner, there are immense opportunities to contribute to the national goal of poverty reduction. Similarly, sustainable forest management can improve the continuous supply of environmental services that can directly impact on the economy and quality of life.  Therefore, the role of forests in adapting to and mitigating climate change impacts in Nepal is increasingly gaining recognition.

SNV works with the Government of Nepal and other relevant stakeholders in an effort to improve the value chain of selected forest products, supporting Nepal’s efforts for deliberative forest governance by promoting all forest management regimes based on community participation, and value-addition in the form of forest carbon services to help mitigate climate change impacts. 

Our Objectives:

• Reducing poverty by supporting value chain development of selected timber and non-timber forest products which have a potential of “economies of scale” for increased income and employment opportunities (Pro-poor forest products Value Chain Development).
• Ensuring the continued practice of sustainable forest management by promoting resource conservation that uses incentives (cash in-kind) to influence environmental services through a concept of REDD (Pro-poor REDD).
• Policy influencing on good forest governance so that enabling framework for promotion and impact-oriented forest products-based value chains is operational (Enabling framework for value chains).

Our Programmes:

• Strengthening Domesticated Forest Products Value Chains: SNV provides advisory and technical services to strengthen public and private land agroforestry, commercialisation of high value Non Timber Forest Products (NTFPs) for increased income and employment in selected districts of Eastern Terai. SNV supports include helping smallholder producers in production, capacity development of producers/user group networks, diversification of products and linking producers to private sector investment.
• Pro-poor REDD for Community Livelihoods: SNV is supporting Government of Nepal through its REDD and climate change cell in adopting a nation wide pro-poor Reduced Emission from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD) framework to ensure equitable benefits to local communities and their livelihoods. In addition, SNV supports REDD+ piloting in Terai productive forests model in collaboration with MFSC/REDD cell and District Forest Office. This piloting is one of the first of its kind in Nepal with initiation of Government of Nepal.