Abstract

The prior identification of local people's preferences for conservation-development projects will help gear nature-conservation strategies toward the needs of different groups of local people. This will help policy-makers in designing a more acceptable and effective conservation strategy. This article reports a study of local perceptions of a community forestry project that aims to help improve the design as well as local acceptance of the project. The data originated from personal interviews conducted in communities around Okwangwo Division of the Cross River National Park in southeast Nigeria and were analysed using ordered logit and binary logit models. The results showed that >50% of the respondents were satisfied with the community forestry project. The respondents' perceptions were mainly influenced by education, age, gender, and willingness to contribute money to tourism as well as the contributions of cocoa, banana, and afang (Gnetum africanum) to the respondents' income. The results from this study have important implications for nature conservation in Nigeria and potentially other conservation contexts across the developing world.

Keywords

Community forestry; Local perceptions; Nature conservation; Nigeria; Ordered logit model; Ratings

Published in

Environmental Management
2012, Volume: 49, number: 1, pages: 207-218
Publisher: SPRINGER

SLU Authors

• Ezebilo, Eugene Ejike

  • Southern Swedish Forest Research Centre, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
    

Sustainable Development Goals

SDG5 Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls


UKÄ Subject classification

Forest Science
Environmental Sciences related to Agriculture and Land-use
Social Sciences


Publication identifier

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00267-011-9765-6

Permanent link to this page (URI)

https://res.slu.se/id/publ/58828