Deforestation and forest degradation mostly caused by human interventions affect the capacity of the forest ecosystem to provide ecosystem services and livelihood benefits. Forest and landscape restoration (FLR) is an emerging concept that focuses on the improvement of the ecosystem as well as the livelihood of the people at the landscape level. Nepal has successfully recovered degraded forest land mainly from the hilly region through forest restoration initiatives, especially community-based forestry. However, the Tarai region is still experiencing deforestation and forest degradation. This study navigated the gaps related to forest restoration in the existing policies and practices and revealed that the persistence of deforestation and forest degradation in Tarai is a result of a complex socioeconomic structure, the limitations of the government in implementing appropriate management modality, unplanned infrastructure, and urban development. We suggest that forest restoration should focus on ecological and social wellbeing pathways at the landscape level to reverse the trend of deforestation and forest degradation in the Tarai regions of Nepal. The study provides critical insight to the policymakers and practitioners of Nepal and other countries (with similar context) who are engaged in forest/ecosystem restoration enterprise.

With high fatality and no cure, chronic wasting disease (CWD) has infected cervids in multiple regions, including the United States, Canada, Europe, and South Korea. Despite the rapid growth of literature on CWD, the full scope of its ecological, social, and economic impacts and the most effective and socially acceptable management strategies to mitigate the disease is unclear. Of 3008 initially identified published peer-reviewed papers, 134 were included in a final systematic literature review to synthesize the current knowledge on CWD transmission patterns, impacts, and the effectiveness of management interventions. The number of publications on CWD has increased steadily since 2000 with an average of six papers per year. Most papers were related to CWD prevalence (39 %), human behavior (33 %), CWD impacts (31 %), and management interventions (16 %). Environmental factors such as soil, water, and plants were identified as the most common transmission medium, with a higher prevalence rate among adult male cervids than females. Hunters showed a higher risk perception and were more likely to change hunting behavior due to CWD detection than non-hunters. Ecological impacts included the decreased survival rate accompanied by lower population growth, eventually leading to the decline of cervid populations. Culling was found to be an effective and widely implemented management strategy across countries, although it often was associated with public resistance. Despite potentially high negative economic impacts anticipated due to CWD, studies on this subject were limited. Sustained surveillance, ongoing research, and engagement of affected stakeholders will be essential for future disease control and management.

Implementation of REDD+ requires measurement and monitoring of carbon emissions from forest degradation in developing countries. Dry forests cover about 40 % of the total tropical forest area, are home to large populations, and hence often display high disturbance levels. They are susceptible to gradual but persistent degradation and monitoring needs to be low cost due to the low potential benefit from carbon accumulation per unit area. Indirect remote sensing approaches may provide estimates of subsistence wood extraction, but sampling of biomass loss produces zero-inflated continuous data that challenges conventional statistical approaches. We introduce the use of Tweedie Compound Poisson distributions from the exponential dispersion family with Generalized Linear Models (CPGLM) to predict biomass loss as a function of distance to nearest settlement in two forest areas in Tanzania. We found that distance to nearest settlement is a valid proxy variable for prediction of biomass loss from fuelwood collection (p < 0.001) and total subsistence wood extraction (p < 0.01). Biomass loss from commercial charcoal production did not follow a spatial pattern related to settlements. Distance to nearest settlement seems promising as proxy variable for estimation of subsistence wood extraction in dry forests in Tanzania. Tweedie GLM provided valid parameters from the over-dispersed continuous biomass loss data with exact zeroes, and observations with zero biomass loss were successfully included in the model parameters.

Background: Poor hygiene practices and inadequate sanitary conditions play major roles in the increased burden of communicable diseases within developing countries. Objectives: To know knowledge and practice regarding hygiene and sanitation of households and to find out the hygienic practices with selected variables. Methods: This cross-sectional study was conducted from 30th April to 13th May 2012 in Dhankuta Municipality where 300 households were taken as subjects. Among 9 wards, 3 wards were randomly selected and equal number of households (100) from each ward was selected on the basis of simple random sampling. Semi-structured questionnaire was used and face to face interview was conducted. Chi-square test was applied to find out the hygienic practices with selected variables. Results: Most of respondents believed that hand washing reduces diseases (71.3%). They knew that diarrhoea is spread by dirty environment (55.7%) and drinking unsafe water (46.3%) and unhygienic food (43.3%). Majority of respondents (95.3%) washing hands with soap and water after defecation. Almost (30%) respondents used burning as a management of solid waste. The ladies were found to have better hygienic practices (92%) than gents (61.6%) and Brahmin/Chhetri (70%) were more hygienic than other ethnic groups. Conclusion: The knowledge and practice on hygiene and sanitation among the households of Dhankuta municipality was found to be fair.DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.3126/hren.v12i1.11985 Health Renaissance 2014;12(1):44-48

Deforestation and forest degradation mostly caused by human interventions affects the capacity of forest ecosystem to provide ecosystem services and livelihood benefits. Forest Land Restoration (FLR) is an emerging concept which focuses on the improvement of ecosystem as well as livelihood of the people at the landscape level. Nepal has successfully recovered degraded forest land mainly from the hilly region through forest restoration initiatives especially community based forestry. However, the Terai region is still experiencing deforestation and forest degradation. This study navigated the gaps related to forest restoration in the existing policies and practices and revealed that the persistence of deforestation and forest degradation in Terai is a result of a complex socio-economic structure, limitation of government to implement appropriate management modality, unplanned infrastructure, and urban development. We suggest that forest restoration should focus on ecological and social wellbeing pathways at the landscape level, to reverse the trend of deforestation and forest degradation in the Terai regions of Nepal. The study provides a critical insight to the policy makers and practitioners of Nepal and other countries (with similar context) who are engaged in forest/ecosystem restoration enterprise.

Sustainable management of wildlife requires a balance among wildlife, humans, and their habitat (Conover, 2002). However, historically, wildlife management has provided insufficient attention to hu...