Birendra Karna has been engaged with IFRI as a researcher for almost 15 years. He has also associated as an institutional development specialist at ForestAction Nepal that hosts and coordinates with the research of IFRI. Birendra is a natural resources management (NRM) professional in research and development of common property institutions, livelihood, and climate change especially in the area of community-based forest management and community-based climate change adaptation.

His research interests focus on understanding the relationship between three conceptual units: humans and their actions in the forests; the biological system that is affected by human actions; and the socio-economic and institutional factors that affect human action in relation to forests. Some of his ongoing current projects include: 1) Research with existing studies of community forestry in order to identify the most important contextual, political, and institutional factors that lead to successful terrestrial carbon storage in forest commons while these common resources provide livelihood benefits to poor families around the developing world 2) Address the above knowledge gaps through careful indicator development and a rigorous and integrative study of the impacts of forest programs on the livelihoods of forest-dependent people and 3) Study on community-based forestry and livelihood in the context of climate change adaptation.

Birendra earned his PhD degree in natural resources management from the Asian Institute of Technology, Thailand (2006-2010), and an MSc and a MA degree in plant biology and Anthropology respectively from  Tribhuvan University, Nepal.

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