INTERCONNECTEDNESS IN SOCIOTECHNICAL DESIGN: A SYSTEMATIC REVIEW OF SUSTAINABLE MANAGEMENT IN NEPAL'S COMMUNITY FOREST

Nepals community forestry is a globally recognized model of participatory forest management, yet it faces persistent challenges related toknowledge asymmetries, multi level governance fragmentation, institutional bricolage, and socio ecological transformations. This systematic literature review synthesizes evidence from 36 peer reviewed studies to examine how inter connectedness has been conceptualized in Nepals community forest governance and to assess the potential of a sociotechnical design lens for improving sustainability outcomes. The review followed PRISMA guidelines, searching Scopus, Web of Science, Google Scholar, and CAB Abstracts. Thematic synthesis revealed four interconnected dimensions: knowledge power dynamics (scientific forestry marginalizing local knowledge), multi level governance networks (weak coordination post federalisation), institutional bricolage (mixing, altering, or eroding formal and informal rules), and socio ecological linkages(out migration and human wildlife conflict destabilizing forest livelihood relations). Crucially, none of the studies explicitly applied a sociotechnical design frame work treating technical and social subsystems as jointly optimiz able representing a critical gap. The review concludes that technical interventions (e.g., forest inventories, monitoring tools) fail when designed in isolation from local social capacities and power structures. The single recommendation is that Nepals Ministry of Forests and Environment mandate a socio technical co design process for all community forest management plans, requiring every technical specification to be developed jointly with CFUG members through facilitated, equity sensitive workshops, piloted in 20 CFUGs, and codified into revised guidelines. Without such integration, sustainability remains elusive.