Evaluating climate change resilience capacity of community forests users in Terhathum districts, Nepal

Nepal is implementing the national adaptation programme of action (NAPA) through local adaptation plan of action (LAPA) to address issues of climate change. Therefore, this research was objectively carried out to explore the climate change impacts and susceptibility of community forest users and assess and compare their resilience capacity. Three community forests and users namely Dhangere Pakha, Saleri and Pathibhara of Terhathum district, Nepal were selected for the study. The stratified random sampling was used to gather the data applying randomized block experimental design (RBD). Altogether, ninety two households were interviewed. In addition, nine meetings, three field observations and four workshops were done to list out impacts of climate change and rank them. Besides, interactions were carried out to find the availability of human, social, financial, natural and institutional capacity and assess its susceptibility, resilience capacity and effectiveness. The vulnerability scoring was assessed using Likert scale. Statistically available resources and resilience capacity of users of community forests were assessed and then compared applying Kruskal Wallis and Mann-Whitney U test. The major climate change impacts like drought, invasion of Lantana camara and drying water sources were listed and ranked as 1^st, 2^nd and 3^rd respectively. The resilience capacity was scored 4 to control fire, medium nearly 1.33 to 2.67 to manage water and it was the least to fight against invasion of Lantana camara only 0.67. The statistical tests showed that there were no significant differences in livelihood resources among and between the users at 5% level of significant.