Different types of property rights over natural resources create different
consequences for use and management. Rights related to access and
entry, management, exclusion or inclusion and alienation affect incentive
structure and future operational decisions. Nepal’s land resources are
either with individuals as private property or with the government as state
property. Though communities manage some part of forests owned by
the state under community-based forest management approaches, they
do not enjoy the privilege of having land entitlement, therefore are very
vulnerable to exclusion from access to forestland and sharing benefits from
it. Based on the analysis of secondary information, this chapter provides
conceptual framework of common property regimes and explores the
opportunities to reform property rights arrangements over forest land
resources in Nepal. Based on the learning of community forestry regime
in Nepal, arguments are made to justify the need to transfer the forest
resources nearby the settlement from the state property to community
property regime.