ECONOMIC VALUATION, LEVEL OF INVOLVEMENT, AND LIVELIHOOD IMPACTS OF PARTICIPATORY FOREST MANAGEMENT PRACTICES: THE CASE OF SHEKA AND KAFA FORESTS, SOUTH WESTERN ETHIOPIA

Recently, attention was given to forest conservation management structure and functioning of ecologically responsible policies through the participatory forest management program (PFMP). The study areas for this study are the Sheka and Kafa forests of South Western Ethiopia where this project was implemented since 2003. The specific objectives of this study are to estimate the communities’ values attached to goods and services of forest resources, their level of involvement, and livelihood impacts of participation in this program. To address these objectives, data were collected from 384 randomly sampled households surrounding the forests. Descriptive statistics and econometric models were used to analyze data. A choice experiment survey was conducted to evaluate an improved intervention of PFMP. It analyzed preferences and their contribution to the valuation of economic, institutional, and ecological aspects in the Kafa and Sheka forests. Among conservation management attributes, two economical (harvesting of non-timber forests and ecotourism employment), one institutional (Research and education), and two ecological (Biodiversity improvement and preserving cultural ecosystem services) were selected in a choice set. The results revealed that households are willing to pay Birr 76.26 ($2.72) to some improve the attributes of the status quo and Birr 138.80 ($4.96) to improve the status quo significantly. Overall, the findings with the improvements in the conditions of conservation interventions show that respondents paid much attention and support the proposed forest conservation management practices to conserve and develop forests in the southwestern Ethiopia. In addition, the results showed that higher education and income increase the likelihood of selecting the intervention. In contrast, older respondents select the status quo more than the younger ones. Second, the study aims to identify the level of participation of the local communities in PFMPs and their determinants. xix However, the benefits and service flow and the various activities related to PFMP are affected by three fundamental factors: Governance and decision-making processes, forest conservation and resilience, and economic incentives. Regression results showed that different elements across the management approaches determine households’ involvement in PFMP. These factors include: Age, sex, family size, distance from the forest, extension service, training, members to cooperatives, membership duration, and social network service. results revealed that membership durations in the program creates a sense of ownership in involving members in participatory forest conservation management, decision-making, and governance of PFMP. Third,, the study attempted to estimate the average causal impacts of member duration in the project on rural households’ livelihoods and found the optimum length of membership at which the households’ benefits are maximized. Using annual per capita consumption expenditure, income from NTFPs, income from crop and livestock productions as indicators of rural livelihoods, generalized propensity score was used to evaluate the heterogeneous effects of membership duration on the livelihoods of participating households. The results revealed that the program’s outcome for each indicator approaches an optimum years of membership doses of 12 years and Birr 4800.00 for annual household per capita consumption spending, 11 years and around Birr 33000.00 for income from NTFPs, 7 years and around 23000.00 Birr for crop income, and 12 years and around 7800.00 Birr for livestock income. The implication is that management strategies need more work on the new entrant members by encouraging new forest-related income sources and integrating the socio-economic network more closely with the forest’s ecosystem services. Fourth, while interventions in forest conservation support community groups, they are subject to rural households’ personal preferences. Further, results show that the existing multi-interventions through community participation are critical among the developments sought for sustainable forest conservation in the study areas. In the light of current outcomes, there is sufficient evidence to claim the challenges under forest conservations and measures to be taken in the future to effectively conserve forests and obtain better benefits by combining alternative improved interventions.