Factors Affecting Participation of Karen Villagers in Forest Resource Conservation in Baelae Highland Agricultural Development Station, Omkoi District, Chiang Mai Province

Abstract

The objectives of this research aimed to study the Karen's participation on irrigation management in Baelae Highland Agricultural Development Station and to analyze the relationship between personal characteristics, social and economic factors and their participation on irrigation management. The sample in the study was 219 people households in Omhad Village Omkoi District, Chiang Mai Province. Data was collected by questionnaires. The data analysis were apply statistic such as percentage, mean, maximum, minimum, standard deviation, and stepwise multiple regression analysis.

The results showed that most of the samples were male (73.1%) and their ages were between 31-40 years old (32.9%). Moreover, they were mostly uneducated (84.5%) as well as their language skill was just medium level. However, 61.2% had been trained about forest conservation, and 1-2 people from each agricultural household had received information about forest conservation from television (48.4%). The main income of the samples was from agriculture (87.7%), and the average income was approximately 3,001-4,000 baht per month (72.6%). The maximum agricultural land owned by each agricultural household was mostly around 1 rai (47.9%). There were 4 aspects of the study of Karen’s participation in the forest conservation activities including reforestation, forest protection, forest fire prevention and knowledge promotion of forest conservation aspects. Overall, reforestation, forest protection and forest fire prevention aspects were in moderate range, whereas knowledge promotion aspect was in low range.  This might be because the majority of the samples was uneducated, lack of knowledge about forest conservation, and lack of Thai language skills, communication was a big problem. Therefore, the aspect of promoting about forest conservation was in low rate of participation. The hypothesis test to analyze the relationship between dependent and independent variables show that age, social position and forest conservation knowledge are associated with the participation in forest conservation at P=0.05.