Factors influencing people's participation in the forest management program in Burkina Faso, West Africa

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Abstract

In attempts to foster sustainable forest management practices, participation of local communities has become widely recognized as a better alternative than the traditional protectionist approach. This paper analyzed factors influencing local people's participation in forest management program in Sissili and Ziro provinces, southern Burkina Faso based on data collected through a household survey of 165 members of forest management groups using factor analysis and multiple regression. Factor analysis resulted in a three-factor solution, which accounted for 64.82% of the total variance. Participation in decision-making, followed by participation in forest conservation and economic benefits were found to be the main factors influencing participation in the forest management program. Gender, household size, income source, land tenure status and technical assistance also appeared to influence members' participation in the program. The results indicate that participatory management program can be enhanced by changing the administrative structure of forest management groups in order to empower members in decision-making processes. In addition, increasing women's participation and more equitable benefit-sharing among user groups are essential in improving the success of the participatory forest management program. Thus, policies reforms to improve the structure of the forest management groups and to establish equitable benefit-sharing mechanisms are essential to improve the participation of local people in the forest management program and, hence, require immediate attention.

Research Highlights

► People’s participation is related to their socio-economic and demographic attributes. ► The nature of the relationship between State Forest Service and local people influence participation. ► Existing forest policies should be revised to encourage people’s participation.

Introduction

In many developing countries, there has been a paradigm shift in conservation and natural resource management away from state-centred control towards approaches in which local people play a much more active role (Shackleton et al., 2002). Various policy reforms and implementation of devolution of use and management rights to local communities or user groups have been introduced (Meinzen-Dick et al., 1999) as a response to the failure of centralized bureaucracies to incorporate the needs of rural people. Previously, centralized forest management by the State, or privatization of property rights, were recommended to conserve forest resources, since local people were seen as major threats to common pool resources (Weeks and Packard, 1997). This recommendation mainly stems from Hardin's theory that common-pool resources will be over-exploited since resources-users are individualistic (Hardin, 1968). However, more recent studies have shown that local user groups can skilfully manage common resources through collective action (Pretty, 2003, Varughese and Ostrom, 2001) and have stressed the importance of involving local people in forest management (Chopra et al., 1990, Guthiga, 2008). Indeed, local people's participation is now widely viewed as crucial for sustainable forest management.

In Burkina Faso, regulatory frameworks have been set in place for the management of the forests, such as the Agrarian and Land Reform, the Environment Code, the Forestry Code, the Proclamations on the Orientation of Decentralization, the National Forestry Policy and the National Program of Forests Management (Sawadogo, 2006). These frameworks of laws, policies and institutional processes emphasized the importance of local people's participation in forest management; e.g. the National Forestry Act stipulates that local communities must be given responsibility for managing natural resources and the environment. Hence, the involvement of local people in the management of forests has become an important component of environmental policy in the country. In 1986, a participatory forest management program was started, and Sissili and Ziro provinces in southern Burkina Faso are among the areas where forest use and management rights have been transferred to the local communities. However, several studies have found a lack of effective community control in this program (Delnooz, 1999, Hagberg, 2001); accentuating the need for a better understanding of factors influencing people's participation in the participatory forest management program.

Thus, this study was conducted with the aim of identifying and characterizing factors that influence local people's decisions to participate in the forest management program and ways through which the State Forest Service influences local people's participation in the program in Sissili and Ziro provinces. Here participation in forest management implies involvement in forest management activities, decision-making and benefiting from forest management activities.

Section snippets

Settings of the forest management program in Burkina Faso

In Burkina Faso, State forest reserves account for 25% of the total area of forests and woodlands, which cover 7.1 million ha (26%) of the country's land area (Kaboré, 2004). Since the 1980s, natural forest management programs have been implemented in the country by the Ministry of the Environment and Water through the support of a joint UNDP/FAO/BKF/85/011 project, which strongly encourage involvement of local people (Delnooz, 1999, Ribot, 1999). The program has been implemented in the areas

Conceptual framework

The term participation is defined as “an active process whereby beneficiary or client groups influence the direction and execution of the development or management of a natural resource to enhance their well-being in terms of income, personal growth, self-reliance or other values” (Little, 1994). It has been classified in several ways by, inter alia, Arnstein, 1969, Buttoud, 1999, Agarwal, 2001. Arnstein (1969) describes citizen's participation in terms of “ladder” of social power structures

Site description

The study was carried out in four FMUs (Ly and Korabou in Sissili province, and FMU no. 2 F and 9 in Ziro province), which are located ca. 150 km from the capital (Ouagadougou) in southern Burkina Faso (11°02′–12°00′ N and 01°30′–2°80′W), West Africa (Fig. 3). The study area, which is part of the Sudanian or south-Sudanian phyto-geographical zone, is characterized by low relief with an average altitude of 300 m above sea level. The population consists of indigenous ethnic groups (Nuni and Wala)

Profile of the respondents

The frequencies of respondents falling into each class of the socio-economic and demographic variables are shown in Table 3. In the four chosen FMUs, nearly all (90.3%) of the 165 respondents were male. During the meetings prior to the survey, the low participation of women in forest management program was noted; prompting us to include as many women as possible in the sample. The low number of female members of the FMUs suggests that women may have less interest to participate in the program

Conclusions

The findings obtained in this study indicate that factors related to decision-making, forest conservation and economic benefits are the most important determinants of local people's participation in forest management program in southern Burkina Faso. Decision-making process is not sufficiently decentralized; albeit the decentralization proclamation enacted in 1992. Still the State Forest Service is heavily involved in the decision-making process to the extent of limiting the active

Acknowledgements

Funding for this study was provided by the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida). We thank all the people who involved in the field data collection. We are grateful to Dr John Blackwell and Sees–editing Ltd for linguistic improvements.

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