Forests are an important natural resource in Nepal. Forests are also the backbone of the country's economic development, such as agriculture, tourism, water resources, and industry. Forests have made a significant contribution to the economic, social, and environmental development of the country.

The Forest Department in Nepal was established to protect, develop, and manage the country's forest resources. It is regularly reorganized to better serve the people. 

Responsibilities

- Policies, laws, rules, guidelines, standards preparation, revision, and amendment related to forest, wildlife, water bodies, and environment protection. 

- Regarding strategic planning of national forests.

- Land use change in forest areas, related to land ownership of forest area.

- Forest encroachment control and management and forest crime control. 

- Forest fire control and management.  

- Commercial quality related to forestry.

- Wildlife management outside protected areas and control of wildlife crime.

- Coordination and Facilitation in Human-Wildlife Conflict Management. 

- Wildlife Rescue Center Operation and Management.

- National and international treaty agreements related to forests, wildlife, and the environment.

- Strategic environmental impact assessment, environmental impact assessment, and preliminary environmental testing.

- Updating the data related to forest production and economic transactions.

- Updating the statistics of activities related to forest development including forest enterprises, nurseries, seedling production, and tree plantations.

- Updating statistics on forest and wildlife crime.

- Conservation and management of forests spread over more than one province, geographically and naturally connected, interrelated from the point of view of the ecological system, in the form of Chakla, covered at the geo-peripheral level. 

- Coordination and facilitation work with the stakeholders of different forest management methods in the implementation of the action plan of the forest protection area.

- Development of geographic information systems of different forest areas.

- Resource mapping of active forest user groups according to the forest management system.

- Forest area land use policy, forest classification, and management treaty work.

- Analyzing the issues related to forest management in relation to various monitoring and inspection reports and recommending necessary initiatives for improvement.

- Analysis of existing forest management models and recommendations for policy reforms.

- Development and expansion of private forests and agricultural forests.

- Development of forest by compensatory tree plantation on the land received for forest land given for other purposes.

- Urban forest development and tree plantation by other agencies.

- Studies, research, technology development, and monitoring and evaluation.

- To carry out policy actions related to the establishment of forest enterprises and to prepare standards.

- Search and list preparation of potential forest enterprises and areas and the assurance of forest production.

- Promotion of forest enterprise and marketing of products, export promotion.

- Providing support in scientific forest management, the selection of appropriate methods related to forest promotion, effectiveness studies, research, preparation of resource materials.

- Protecting, researching, and managing endangered species such as Vijaysal, Satisal, Sivakthrone, etc.

- Find, develop, and update new technologies related to forestry, nursery management, forest seed and tree improvement, transfer, and expand.

- Improve the genetic quality of economically important species and increase productivity in coordination with provincial ministries.

- Certification of quality seeds of different species, related to laboratory testing and management.

- Effective implementation of a forest management system based on an agroforestry system.

- Mainting greenery by developing forests in the areas outside the national forest.

- Survey of major landslides at the national level, risk assessment, sensitivity studies and documentation.

- Identification, classification, and prioritization of watershed areas.

- Integrated watershed management by maintaining the upper and lower coastal interconnections of international, inter-provincial spread river systems.

- Coordinating the work of large watershed management centers.

- Management of information system by keeping geo-biological and socio-economic data related to water resources up to date.

- Conduct sample programs of conservation and development related to land use development.

- Disaster-related data and information collection analysis study research and mitigation.

- Management action plan by mapping areas such as damaged land, river-rising land.

- On-site demonstration of soil and watershed conservation techniques.

- Knowledge, technology, and other scientific studies related to watershed and landslide management related to research and dissemination.

- Development and expansion of early warning systems for water-borne disasters like floods and landslides.

- Survey and documentation of nationally and internationally recognized wetlands and wetlands.

- To carry out integrated watershed management for sustainable management of wetlands.

- To perform other necessary tasks specified by the Ministry.