Participatory Action and Learning: A Field Worker's Guide for Supporting Community Forest Management

This is one of two guidebooks developed to support forest user groups (FUGs) in Nepal in managing their community forests. It is based on the work of the Forest User Groups Forest Management Project in collaboration with the Nepal-UK Community Forestry Project (now the Livelihoods and Forestry Programme), and also on wider developments taking place in community forestry in Nepal.

Recognising the limited training of foresters to act as facilitators of community forestry, the guidebook describes the 'Participatory Action and Learning (PAL)' approach to planning community forest management in a village. It describes the rationale for PAL, the process involved in it and the various factors that form the PAL strategy. It also describes in detail how to plan and implement individual steps and what tools and techniques are needed. The guidebook is intended for government forest department field staff, staff of field projects, staff of non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and community-based organisations (CBOs), as well as FUG members.

Click here to access this resource online and download each part as a PDF file.