Balancing fuelwood and biodiversity concerns in rural Nepal

To assess the potential for biodiversity conservation we evaluated the effect of protecting areas with high values of polypore diversity. The simulation results showed such area protection strategies to be effective for short-term protection of polypore diversity only in the event of a dramatic increase in the local market price of fuelwood. In case of smaller changes in fuelwood prices a collection quota system appeared to be the most suitable protection strategy. However, area protection is an important strategy for long-term protection of biodiversity associated with dead wood and, therefore, we conclude that a combination of small-protected zones and collection quotas seems to be the most promising strategy for protection of the forest.