Contributions of participatory forest management practices to forest cover and livelihoods in Lembus forest ecosystem, Baringo County, Kenya

Abstract

Globally, forests and its resources have supported the expansion of many economies with a direct employment of about 2 billion people. Recent studies show a drastic fall in the global and local forest cover to 30% and 7% respectively, subsequently leading to review of forestry legislations to address declining forest cover. In Kenya, degradation of forests has been attributed to the exclusion of forests adjacent communities in its management with the authorities. This subsequently led to enactment of the Forest Act, 2005 which provided for participation of local communities through Plantation Establishement and Livelihood Improvement Scheme. However, the contributions of PELIS to forest cover and livelihoods improvement have not been established. Therefore, the objectives of this study were to: determine the contribution of PELIS (Number of seedlings planted) on Forest cover; determine the contribution of PELIS (Forest product yields) on Forest cover; determine the contribution of PELIS (Forests products income) on the livelihood; determine the cost and benefits of PELIS; and determine the contribution of policy and legislations on livelihood, forest cover and equity in Lembus Commnity Forest Association. Cross sectional descriptive research design was adopted. Purposive sampling was used to select the 8 Commnity Forest Associations, while systematic sampling was used to select 384 households. Primary sources of data involved administration of questionnaires, Key informant interviews, Focused Group Discussions. Secondary data were collected by review of pieces of legislations and policy documents. Data analyses was done by use of both descriptive and inferential statistics. The study established a very strong positive correlation between the number of seedlings planted and forest cover which was statistically significant (ρ = 0.934, p < .001). This indicated large effect size and hence very large contribution of PELIS to forest cover. The relationships between maize and beans yields and forest cover showed a strong positive association (ρ = 0.646, p < 0.001). This indicated a large effect size and hence large contribution of PELIS to forest cover. However, maize and beans incomes showed moderate positive relationship with both school transition and livelihood projects in 2019 (r = 0.464, p > 0.24), also for beans income in 2019 (r = 0.238, p > 0.05) and herbs income in 2019 (r = 0.265, p > 0.05). These results indicated medium effect size and hence medium contribution of PELIS to livelihood. The findings further indicated that the difference between the mean cost and benefits of PFM was statistically significant, (t (28) = 2.213, p<.05). Analysis of policy and legislative awareness showed a significant number of the forest community were unaware of existing laws and policies governing tree planting, livelihood and equity (p<.05). In conclusion, the study found out that participatory forest management practices had positive contribution to both forest cover and livelihood, however, the consumption of forests product was imbalanced among the stakeholders. The majority of community forest association members were unaware of laws and policies governing tree planting, livelihood and equity. Therefore, there was need to increase plantation and crop production to contribute positively to forest cover and livelihood projects. The findings therefore would enable the Government to formulate laws and regulations that govern the sustainable management of forests and its resources.