The impacts of a community forestry program on forest conditions, management intensity and revenue generation in the Dang district of Nepal

A growing literature documents the positive impact of community management on non-timber forest conservation but not on the condition of timber forests, which require higher management intensity than do non-timber forests. Using ground-level data of the age composition of trees and the management activities of timber forests and applying a rigorous econometric technique to deal with the endogeneity of handing over forest use rights to the community, we find that a longer period of community management is associated with a higher density of pole-size trees, indicating that community management facilitates the rehabilitation of timber forests. We also find that population pressure leads to deforestation under state management but encourages forest management under community management.