Participation and Potential Areas under Community-based Forest Management and Conservation in Upper Kuang Watershed, Chiang Mai Province

Abstract

This research studied the participation of communities in forest conservation and management, and the use of a geographic information system (GIS) technique to assess potential areas of community-based forest in the Upper Kuang watershed in Chiang Mai Province, northern Thailand. The purpose of this study was to understand whether the degree of participation was consistent with the potential of the area under community-based forest management.    The study area consisted of natural headwater forest that had been managed by the government in collaboration with 23 local communities in the area. The conceptual framework of the study focused on three main issues—the participation of communities in forest management and conservation, the potential areas to be set up as community-based forest, and the consistency of participation and the potential areas. A structured interview was conducted to collect social data from 360 households in 23 villages using a random sampling technique. The statistical analysis was carried out using SPSS Version 11 and hypothesis testing used Pearson’s correlation coefficient and a t-test.  Spatial analysis was conducted using seven physical factors—namely, distance from road, distance from settlement, landuse patterns, slope, biomass, watershed class, and forest landuse zone—to evaluate the potential forest areas that were suitable for access and utilization, management, and conservation. All factors were analyzed with weighted scores and rating scores by 20 ad hoc committees. The average weighted and rating scores were applied in the equation used to overlay all physical factors. The potential areas were identified as clustered by using Jenks natural breaks classification method. The Mann Whitney U test was used to analyze the consistency of the degree of participation and the potential areas.

The study revealed a high level of people participation in forest management and conservation in addressing problems, planning, and the implementation of the plan, whereas a low level of the participation was found in monitoring and evaluation. The factors that significantly enhanced the participation of communities in forest management and conservation were the strength of the communities, returned benefit from the forest, knowledge and understanding of forest laws, roles of community leaders taking part in forest conservation and management, and the support of outsiders.  The analysis revealed that most of the area near the community in the upper Kuang watershed showed relatively high potential for management and conservation (31.41%). The remaining areas with potential were agricultural land, water sources, areas far from settlement and roads.  The results of the study on the consistency of participation by communities in forest conservation and management and the potential areas showed that the areas with high potential had high participation, whereas low potential areas had low participation. It was found that 15 out of 23 villages had both high participation levels and high potential areas. There were 3 villages with low participation in high potential areas and 5 villages where no consistency of participation level was found irrespective of the level of area potential.

Keywords:  Participation, Community-Based Forest, Conservation, Potential Area for Conservation, GIS