When I used to remember my days working at the District Forest Officer, I have plenty of important events, people, incidents to remember. During my 10 years of professional jobs working as the Forest Officer, in Nepal, I have encountered many people, and faced many problems. Some characters are quite good and some are bad however both of these character have strong impressions to me. During my jobs, I have served mostly in Dang, Achham, Sarlahi and 
Doti ranging from Terai to High hills.
I have intereacted with many people including fellow staffs seniors and subordinate, politician, social worker, journalists. Some people are very supportive to me. They have shown great trust to me. They believed us in the exteme cases. They never thought that we can lie and do bad. They had blind faith on us. We were believed even when we were wrong. Some people were very critical to us. Some were extremely biased. For them, whatever good we used to do, they used to find mistakes on it. Between these two extremes, I have some profound memory working with two noteable characters in the Sarlahi. They showed their great support and faith on us when we were doing right for the development of forestry sector and upliftment of people's livelihood. And, on the following days, when something wrong occured, they did not sit behind from protesting us. Working with these kinds of people, supporting good activities and strongly opposing the weaknesses and mistakes, used to be the source of motivation and encouragement to me and others.
This time, I will talk about an old man who is around 55 years old, but he is so energetic, he left us behind in many cases. The name of this 55 years young(!) man is Dinesh Thapa (Chhetri). He is old but he was always ready to work for the people and for the forest. He has been backed with strong public support. He was the elected chairperson of Bihani Community Forestry User
Group, Murtiya-3, Sarlahi. This place lies around 14 kilometer south from East West Highway. They fought several years with district forest office demanding the handover of Community Forest to the user group. Many DFOs, AFOs, Rangers provided plain words to them but did not hand over the rights to manage their forests by themselves. They rallied, protested, advocated but the District Forest Office did not hear their voice. The DFO were not able to convince their fellow staffs to hand over the forest to the community. Handover of the forest to user group is loosing their rights.
One day, we became able to hand over the forest to 4 different user groups. I used to remember the day, when we fought against the illegal pressure from local maoist (then rebellion) and managed to hand over four community forests to 4 different users groups of that region. On the day of handover, there were big rally organised in support of District Forest Office. People decorated us with the garlands of flowers. They chanted slogan in favour of us and our office. The people who were extremely against the office, were honoring us and chanting loud slogans for us! What a change! That shows their respect can be won if we work for them.
Unknowingly I deviated from the topic. Sorry for that!
After the hand over, these 22 hactare of forest (90% Dalbergia sissoo plantation), they were conserving and managing forest prudentally. They have allocated land to all 73 members of their user groups to grow improved grass. Dinesh Thapa brought seeds and seedlings from several places and grew there and distributed to all members freely. His endeavors worked out. People, mostly farmers, are getting higher quality grasses to their livestock which increases the productivity of their livestock. Once milk dry zone of Sarlahi, is now selling milk to the surrounding villages. The coverage and diversity of forest have been tremendously improved in short times. Once disappeared 22 species of NTFPs reappeared there. That might be retrogression or succesion in ecological term. His community forest used to be visited by academicians, foresters, social worker and others as the open university for the forestry and livelihood improvements. He has vision and courage to materialize his vision into field. He has inspired the true empowerment of women and Madhesis since long time. If everybody used to behave and act like him in the aspects of inclusion of women and madhesis, there would not be such a hue and cry about Madhesh issue in Nepal.
Besides, he leased out barren land from Sagarnath Forestry Development Projects and cultivated Citronella, Pamarossa, Chamommile and Asparagus. He has involved all the poor people of that region on the cultivation of it. He was expecting the upliftment of the livelihood of poors with the production of high demanded NTFPs. He used to work hard on the field rather than just preaching. People can find him in three places, mostly inside his community forest, if not there in leased out land for Asparagus cultivation, if not there then certainly in some places such as meeting, lobbying, protesting, training etc for the forest and livelihood.
He has been inspiring other people to work and unite for the community forestry. He inspired many to grow NTFPs in their land and in forest too.
Moreover, he was phenomenal to stop the illegal encroachment and smuggling of forest products from that region. This region was quite notorious for illegal smuggling of forest products, but now this is almost peace zone without illegal activities. All these credit goes to Dinesh Thapa, who spent tolls and toils to the betterment of forestry and the people. He was nicknamed as Ban Thapa (Forest Thapa) for his involvement in this sector. He has been honoured by several organisation including District Forest Office, FECOFUN and several NGOs and civil society. Everybody is willing to acquire good name via his hard work and fame. This short memory might follow the same intention. My salutation goes to him.
District Forest Office had several times recommended him and his community forestry user group for the national award such as "Band Devi Prize" established by NFA and "Bir Ganeshma Singh Prize" by minsitry. Me as the government representative in DFO, Sarlahi had fulfilled all the forms and requirements, attached all the social, biological and economical achievements of that CF and Dinesh Thapa and submitted to Nepal Foresters Association and the Ministry. Since our seniors do not like to visit the sites and they decide on the plain recommendation of some power broker, I submitted the raw (unedited) video showing the forest, their activities and all the aspects needed to select it for the prize. But, unfortunately, this CFUG had never been selected for the prize. Because, this was not the choice of power broker and the so-called experts, advocates or the illegal contractors inside.
Anyway, he has been gaining popular support from the people of Sarlahi. For which he used to call that this is more important than few medals, certificates and money as a prize. His endeavor can never be rated lowly on the criteria of our rewarding system.
I do not know about the recent progresses there. And, also I have not been in contact with him since nearly two years. Being out of the country, I am not being able to get connected with Dinesh Thapa and his community, since they are not connected and do not have ability to internet and I do not have time and patience to use postal services.
Anyway, wherever I am, I always respect and greet the untiring endeavors of Dinesh Thapa and his team in flourishing community forestry and watchguarding nearby national forest. We need only few Dinesh Thapas to improve the whole scenario of forest and forestry in Nepal. Do you know few other Dinesh Thapas who has been working for the sector selflessly?
Doti ranging from Terai to High hills.I have intereacted with many people including fellow staffs seniors and subordinate, politician, social worker, journalists. Some people are very supportive to me. They have shown great trust to me. They believed us in the exteme cases. They never thought that we can lie and do bad. They had blind faith on us. We were believed even when we were wrong. Some people were very critical to us. Some were extremely biased. For them, whatever good we used to do, they used to find mistakes on it. Between these two extremes, I have some profound memory working with two noteable characters in the Sarlahi. They showed their great support and faith on us when we were doing right for the development of forestry sector and upliftment of people's livelihood. And, on the following days, when something wrong occured, they did not sit behind from protesting us. Working with these kinds of people, supporting good activities and strongly opposing the weaknesses and mistakes, used to be the source of motivation and encouragement to me and others.
This time, I will talk about an old man who is around 55 years old, but he is so energetic, he left us behind in many cases. The name of this 55 years young(!) man is Dinesh Thapa (Chhetri). He is old but he was always ready to work for the people and for the forest. He has been backed with strong public support. He was the elected chairperson of Bihani Community Forestry User
Group, Murtiya-3, Sarlahi. This place lies around 14 kilometer south from East West Highway. They fought several years with district forest office demanding the handover of Community Forest to the user group. Many DFOs, AFOs, Rangers provided plain words to them but did not hand over the rights to manage their forests by themselves. They rallied, protested, advocated but the District Forest Office did not hear their voice. The DFO were not able to convince their fellow staffs to hand over the forest to the community. Handover of the forest to user group is loosing their rights.One day, we became able to hand over the forest to 4 different user groups. I used to remember the day, when we fought against the illegal pressure from local maoist (then rebellion) and managed to hand over four community forests to 4 different users groups of that region. On the day of handover, there were big rally organised in support of District Forest Office. People decorated us with the garlands of flowers. They chanted slogan in favour of us and our office. The people who were extremely against the office, were honoring us and chanting loud slogans for us! What a change! That shows their respect can be won if we work for them.
Unknowingly I deviated from the topic. Sorry for that!
After the hand over, these 22 hactare of forest (90% Dalbergia sissoo plantation), they were conserving and managing forest prudentally. They have allocated land to all 73 members of their user groups to grow improved grass. Dinesh Thapa brought seeds and seedlings from several places and grew there and distributed to all members freely. His endeavors worked out. People, mostly farmers, are getting higher quality grasses to their livestock which increases the productivity of their livestock. Once milk dry zone of Sarlahi, is now selling milk to the surrounding villages. The coverage and diversity of forest have been tremendously improved in short times. Once disappeared 22 species of NTFPs reappeared there. That might be retrogression or succesion in ecological term. His community forest used to be visited by academicians, foresters, social worker and others as the open university for the forestry and livelihood improvements. He has vision and courage to materialize his vision into field. He has inspired the true empowerment of women and Madhesis since long time. If everybody used to behave and act like him in the aspects of inclusion of women and madhesis, there would not be such a hue and cry about Madhesh issue in Nepal.
Besides, he leased out barren land from Sagarnath Forestry Development Projects and cultivated Citronella, Pamarossa, Chamommile and Asparagus. He has involved all the poor people of that region on the cultivation of it. He was expecting the upliftment of the livelihood of poors with the production of high demanded NTFPs. He used to work hard on the field rather than just preaching. People can find him in three places, mostly inside his community forest, if not there in leased out land for Asparagus cultivation, if not there then certainly in some places such as meeting, lobbying, protesting, training etc for the forest and livelihood.
He has been inspiring other people to work and unite for the community forestry. He inspired many to grow NTFPs in their land and in forest too.
Moreover, he was phenomenal to stop the illegal encroachment and smuggling of forest products from that region. This region was quite notorious for illegal smuggling of forest products, but now this is almost peace zone without illegal activities. All these credit goes to Dinesh Thapa, who spent tolls and toils to the betterment of forestry and the people. He was nicknamed as Ban Thapa (Forest Thapa) for his involvement in this sector. He has been honoured by several organisation including District Forest Office, FECOFUN and several NGOs and civil society. Everybody is willing to acquire good name via his hard work and fame. This short memory might follow the same intention. My salutation goes to him.
District Forest Office had several times recommended him and his community forestry user group for the national award such as "Band Devi Prize" established by NFA and "Bir Ganeshma Singh Prize" by minsitry. Me as the government representative in DFO, Sarlahi had fulfilled all the forms and requirements, attached all the social, biological and economical achievements of that CF and Dinesh Thapa and submitted to Nepal Foresters Association and the Ministry. Since our seniors do not like to visit the sites and they decide on the plain recommendation of some power broker, I submitted the raw (unedited) video showing the forest, their activities and all the aspects needed to select it for the prize. But, unfortunately, this CFUG had never been selected for the prize. Because, this was not the choice of power broker and the so-called experts, advocates or the illegal contractors inside.
Anyway, he has been gaining popular support from the people of Sarlahi. For which he used to call that this is more important than few medals, certificates and money as a prize. His endeavor can never be rated lowly on the criteria of our rewarding system.
I do not know about the recent progresses there. And, also I have not been in contact with him since nearly two years. Being out of the country, I am not being able to get connected with Dinesh Thapa and his community, since they are not connected and do not have ability to internet and I do not have time and patience to use postal services.
Anyway, wherever I am, I always respect and greet the untiring endeavors of Dinesh Thapa and his team in flourishing community forestry and watchguarding nearby national forest. We need only few Dinesh Thapas to improve the whole scenario of forest and forestry in Nepal. Do you know few other Dinesh Thapas who has been working for the sector selflessly?
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