Abstract
The Himalayan region has faced frequent and extensive wildfires in recent years. Despite this, drivers and livelihood impacts of fires have not been adequately studied. We investigated socioeconomic drivers and impacts of forest fires across Mountain, Mid-Hill, and Terai regions of the central Himalayas, Nepal. Through household surveys (n = 207) and key informant interviews (n = 11) we found that human actions, both deliberate and accidental, were major perceived causes of forest fires. Majority of respondents stated that fires promoted the growth of fodder grasses and wild edible mushrooms, but negatively affected fodder trees, timber, and medicinal plants. In the Mid-Hill region, we observed that abandoned farmland converts to shrubland and provides forest products to owners, thereby reducing dependence on community forests and affecting the sense of forest ownership. Our findings suggest an urgent need to integrate wildfire as a key issue in forest management policies in this region.
Abstract from the paper’s OpenAlex record, shown for indexing and research. Copyright remains with the authors or the publisher. Read at the source ↗
The text the model read, with the source record’s inline markup (italics, sub- and superscripts) rendered and its character entities decoded; quote offsets refer to the raw text.
Claims 4
Claim · model-written summary
Respondents said fire promoted fodder grass growth.
Verbatim
e0“fires promoted the growth of fodder grasses”
Claim · model-written summary
Respondents said fires negatively affected fodder trees.
Verbatim
e0“fires promoted the growth of fodder grasses and wild edible mushrooms, but negatively affected fodder trees, timber, and medicinal plants”
Claim · model-written summary
Respondents said fires negatively affected medicinal plants.
Verbatim
e0“negatively affected fodder trees, timber, and medicinal plants”
Claim · model-written summary
Abandoned farmland converted to shrubland in the Mid-Hill region.
Verbatim
e0“In the Mid-Hill region, we observed that abandoned farmland converts to shrubland”