Introduction

Background
The community forestry concept in Nepal is a courageous, innovative and future oriented approach towards participatory forest management by local people. Community Forestry Program is widely celebrated as one of the most progressive policy examples of devolving control over forest resources to community based user groups, which has established a viable procedure for handing over the forests to actual groups of users with a legal status as autonomous and corporate institutions with perpetual succession.

Genesis of FECOFUN and its status:

Federation of Community Forest Users, Nepal (FECOFUN) emerged out of the idea that forest users from all parts of the country should be linked in order to strengthen the role of users in policy making process. And since its inception in July 1995, it has grown into a social movement organization with about 8 million people- all of whom are forest users. It is a national federation of forest users of across Nepal dedicated to promoting and protecting users’ rights. The memberships of FECOFUN are categorized into two types according to user-groups' involvement in natural resource management and use rights. Community Forest User Groups (CFUGs) organized under the Forest Act-1993 of Nepal (provision relating to formation of CFUG) are eligible to become general member of this federation and any other user groups based on forest resources at grassroots level  are qualified to become elementary member. The structure of this Federation is comprised of three tiers like Village or Range post, District, and Central level committees. Furthermore, FECOFUN works to strengthen the institution of users groups and to increase their awareness to reduce poverty of local people through forest resource management.

To date, more than 11,200 CFUGs from across Nepal are affiliated with FECOFUN and it is towards a growing trend. FECOFUN has become an effective mechanism for developing a dialogue between policy makers and users and also, a learning center for user groups to take advantage from forest management.

Activities

As a national advocate for forest users' rights, FECOFUN has effectively lobbied government officials and politicians, organized marches, demonstrations, and signature campaigns, and filed court cases. It has been successful to unit the forest users of across Nepal and acting collectively to gain and retain users' resource management and use rights. FECOFUN is pursuing legal awareness and variety of legal recourses in favor of users. The establishment of FECOFUN made possible to develop its ability to engage in debates about community forestry's futures in local, national and international arenas. And also, FECOFUN has been involving in technical support for user groups in the areas of forest resource management and empowerment so that they can take advantage out of it. However, the process and role of the federation continues to evolve to face new challenges. Besides national level advocacy, FECOFUN has been carrying wider reverberation even in international arena to secure users’ rights and to conserve the environment.

Who runs the FECOFUN?

The FECOFUN is being run by elected representatives of forest user groups at all levels from grassroots to central level. To make its operating mechanism understandable for all, it can be explained with two tiers of decision making processes especially at central level, which are mentioned below:

a. Ultimate Decision Making Authority:
General assembly with equitable representation of men and women from all Districts (inclusive of all minority groups, various political interests and regional balance), convened in every three years, is the ultimate policy maker of FECOFUN. The number of participants in the assembly from each District  is based on the number of its existing forest user groups.  The assembly approves future plans and allocation of resources for programs at national level. As a complementary to general assembly, the second main body of the federation is the National Council composed of one male and one female represented from all 75 districts together with the National Executive Committee members. The National Council can make decision to remove difficulties related to policy other than anticipated during assembly. The council meeting holds once within the three year tenure.

b. Day to Day Decision Making
Because general assembly is held in three years and the National Council meeting takes place only once in one and half years, the council delegates specific duties to National Executive Committee (NEC). The NEC is composed of 53 members which include; the elected 28 persons representing all fourteen zones of the country, 20 persons elected from the reserved quota for multi-ethnicity, Dalits, regional imbalance, physical  handicapped persons and the poorest groups, plus 5 members nominated by central committee. The election takes place during general assembly provisioned with equitable representation of women. Further more, to run the day to day activities such as administration, direction and control promptly, there is a steering committee within the executive committee. The steering committee is composed of all office bearers like Chair, vice chair, general secretary and treasurer and a few members nominated by the executive committee.

As the third general assembly of FECOFUN was recently held, the steering committee is yet to be formed. For that reason, an interim working group has been set-up to continue immediate activities until the establishment of steering committee for this tenure. Mr. Ghanashyam Panday (Chairperson), Ms. Samjhana Thapalia (vice chair), Mr. Bhola Bhattarai (General Secretary) and Ms. Bharati Pathak (Treasurer) are delegated to work on behalf of the steering committee.

Secretariat:
The headquarters is in Katmandu. The secretariat of headquarters consists of resource library, account/Administration, lobbying/advocacy and program sections. There are offices for District-FOCOFUN  at headquarters of all seventy five districts. To further ensure the effectiveness of FECOFUN two independent units; the justice committee and program development and monitoring committee, are established within national FECOFUN.

Staff:
 Approximately 34 employees in Katmandu and over 250 in district offices.

Source of Funds:
40% from own source like membership fee from forest users' groups and 60% from donors. The recently held general assembly of FECOFUN has developed and approved strategies and programs to promote self-reliance and reduce donor dependency through internal resource mobilization.
 

Vision Statements 2007 - 2010

As a representative organization FECOFUN is inclusive, institutionally effective, self reliant and exercises absolute democracy.

Forest User Groups sustainably manage their natural resources are self reliant and practice social justice and inclusive democracy.

 FECOFUN is recognized by stakeholders as an innovative and strong civil society organization in natural resource management, social campaign, and proactive policy development and practice.

FECOFUN is a strong partner in collaboration with international organizations for the promotion of community based natural resource management globally.

Mission

To promote and protect rights of community forest users through capacity strengthening, economic empowerment, sustainable resource management, technical support, advocacy and lobbying, policy development, and national and international networking and to uphold the values of inclusive democracy, gender balance, and social justice.