The highest historical rates of deforestation in Nepal are found in the country’s Terai Arc Landscape along the foothills of the Himalayas in the southernmost part of Nepal. The Terai region is home to 20% of Nepal’s forests, and deforestation and forest degradation in this region have been driven primarily by illegal logging, fuelwood extraction, cattle ranching and overgrazing, agricultural expansion, forest fires, and infrastructure development.
5 provinces and 13 districts of Nepal’s Terai Arc Landscape
Building on almost two decades of Nepal’s successful community-based forest management program, the country’s ER program delivers forest conservation results and emission reductions at scale by addressing the pressures and threats to forests across the program area. The program’s interventions include improving the management practices on existing community forests building on traditional and customary practices; localizing forest governance through the transfer of national forests to community and collaborative forest user groups; expanding private sector forestry through improved access to extension services and finance; expanding access to alternative energy with biogas and improved cookstoves; scaling up pro-poor leasehold forestry; improving integrated land use planning to reduce forest conversion associated with advancing infrastructure development; and strengthening the management of protected areas.
FCPF 2024 Annual Report
The 2024 FCPF annual report spotlights a banner year for total FCPF emission reductions payments, which more than tripled from $53.2 million in 2023 to $164.5 million in 2024.