PLA Notes CD-ROM 1988-2001 2 Rapid appraisal for fuelwood planning in Nepal

Collecting information for planning complex problems such as fuelwood in rural areas is difficult. These problems are highly variable, express themselves indirectly and are localityspecific. Their investigation requires sensitivity to local situations across a variety of fields. Fuelwood problems are about far more than just energy: land use and tenure, forestry, environmental stress and farming systems must al be looked at if these problems are to be understood and effective solutions developed. And yet people involved directly in planning never have the luxury of time to assess the situation, and should be reluctant to commit large quantities of resources which could be used to finance direct activities.