Abstract
In the remote Himalayan districts of Pithoragarh, India and Baitadi, Nepal, households are dependent on agriculture and forests for their livelihood. In this paper, we examine poverty–forest linkages by examining data from a survey of 652 households from these districts, who live on either side of the Mahakali River. Per capita income in Nepal is half of that in India. Yet, in the Himalayas, where households live in a similar geographic terrain, we find that households in Nepal are much better off in terms of assets and income relative to their Indian counterparts. Per capita, Nepalese also collect less than half the fuelwood collected by Indians. Remittances, economic diversification and better water and sanitation infrastructure may contribute to improved livelihood outcomes in Nepal. Forests are intrinsic to life in both districts, and institutional or technological differences may be responsible for disparities in forest use.
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Notes
- 1.
These households were surveyed for the project “Valuation of Ecosystem Services of Kailash Sacred Landscape” undertaken jointly by the South Asian Network for Development and Environmental Economics (SANDEE) and the International Center for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD) under the Kailash Sacred Landscape Conservation and Development Initiative (KSLCDI).
- 2.
This is contested data as latest Nepal forest inventory data indicate that 40% of Nepal’s land area is in forests and 4% in shrub (DFRS 2015).
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Acknowledgements
The data for this study came from a larger research project jointly conducted by the South Asian Network for Development and Environmental Economics (SANDEE) and the International Center for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD) under the Kailash Sacred Landscape Conservation and Development Initiative (KSLCDI). This chapter uses small sub-set of the data collected for the main research project. We would like to thank KSLCDI research collaborators Laxmi Bhatta, Madan Khadayat, Rajan Kotru, C. G. S. Negi, Rajesh Rai, R. S. Rawal, and E. Somanathan. The views expressed in this publication, however, are those of the authors and should not be attributed to SANDEE, ICIMOD or their funding agencies.
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Shyamsundar, P., Das, S., Nepal, M. (2018). Forest Dependence and Poverty in the Himalayas—Differences Between India and Nepal. In: Dayal, V., Duraiappah, A., Nawn, N. (eds) Ecology, Economy and Society. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-5675-8_12
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