How Women in Nepal Turn Forest Waste Into Money and Help

Meena Poudel bends down in the early morning light under the tall Sal and Beech trees in Nawalpur District. She picks up leaves and small pieces of wood from the forest floor. Around her, other women work together, cutting away dead branches and tangled plants. This work is important—the dead material on the forest floor can cause dangerous fires. Now, these women collect it and turn it into something useful: organic fertilizer (a natural material that helps plants grow).

Meena is 41 years old and leads the Binayi Community Forest User Group. This is a group of local people who take care of the forest together. What Meena and the other women do has changed their lives. The fertilizer business gives them money. Meena now pays for her son's university studies in Kathmandu and takes care of her family without depending on others. She says, "We women have developed the capacity to manage our households, cover family expenses, and educate our children."

Twenty women from the Binayi Triveni area collect leaves and dead wood and turn them into fertilizer. Local farmers and government plant nurseries buy this fertilizer. The women make over 60,000 kilograms of fertilizer every year. This work gives income to about 400 people in an area where jobs are hard to find, especially for women. Most importantly, the work has reduced forest fires by 70 percent in the past year.

In Nepal, community forests are forests that the government gives to local groups to protect and use. Nepal started this system in 1993. Today, there are over 22,000 community forest groups in Nepal. These groups take care of about 41 percent of all the forests in the country. Millions of people in rural Nepal depend on these forests. Meena's work is part of this very large system.

The leaves and dead wood that Meena collects are exactly what causes forest fires. Nepal is facing bigger problems because of climate change. The country has more forest fires, floods, and droughts. These problems affect over 10 million people. By removing dead material from the forest floor, the women make the forest safer from fire.

The fertilizer helps local farmers. One farmer tested three different fertilizers on the same piece of land. Only the Binayi fertilizer made plants grow well all season. Another farmer, Anant Prakash Shrestha, saw good results. After using the fertilizer, his crops had fewer diseases and grew better, with better growth and development overall.

The project started with help from the local government and international organizations. In 2023, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations gave money to help the group. They taught the women how to make better fertilizer and how to sell it. They helped the women write a business plan and understand the market. Soon, the women became real business owners.

Research shows that when women lead forest groups, the forests stay healthier. Groups with many women leaders have better forest growth than other groups. This happens because women work hard to protect the forests and follow the rules.

Other women in Nepal are also starting forest businesses. Shanta Neupane from central Nepal saw that women worked very hard on their small farms but had no money of their own. She wanted to help women work together and sell forest products. She visited other countries to learn about business. Then she started her own women's group in 2015 to show other women how it could work.

In western Nepal, women make bowls and plates from sal leaves. These are natural leaves that fall from sal trees. The leaves are stitched together with bamboo fibers. One group of 22 women makes these products. In December 2023, they got a new machine that uses heat and pressure to shape the leaves. With this machine, they made over 108,000 plates in one year—three times more than before. Now each woman earns about 155,640 Nepali rupees (about 1,150 US dollars) per year.

Before, they had one old machine that often broke and needed fixing. The new machine lets the women make different sizes of plates. Now hotels, schools, weddings, and government offices buy their plates. The plates are popular during celebrations and are now used in restaurants, offices, weddings, schools, and hotels.

The sal leaf plates are very good for the environment. They are made only from leaves and bamboo, so they break down naturally. Sal trees naturally drop eight or nine leaves every year. The women collect these fallen leaves—they do not cut the trees. The leaves would normally just rot or burn, so collecting them creates value from something that would be wasted.

Many people in rural Nepal depend on forest products for money and food. There are over 700 types of plants that give useful products. About 150 of these are sold in other countries.

The community forest system in Nepal helps people in many ways. Research shows that it helps children grow healthy and strong. It reduces poverty, especially in poor areas. When the system works well across the whole country, it prevents thousands of cases of sick and weak children every year.

In Dangisharan and Tulsipur, the local government has banned single-use plastic dishes. Now restaurants and offices use the natural sal leaf plates instead. The women earn good money, and their families are better off. In Nawalpur District, Meena Poudel continues her work each morning, turning forest waste into fertilizer that helps plants grow and feeds her family.