People’s Opinions on Forest Resource Conservation under the Forest Land Allotment Project, Democratic People’s Republic of Laos

Abstract

The objectives of this research were to determine the basic, socio-economic information and factors affecting people’s opinions on forest resource conservation of the communities under the forest land allotment project in the Democratic People’s Republic of Laos. The data were collected by employing a pre-designed questionnaire in the interview of 99 respondents. The collected data were used to analyze and represent the statistical values of percentage, mean, minimum, maximum and testing of hypothesis to represent the relationship between the independent and dependent variables by t-test and F-test; the given significant level was 0.05. Results of the study indicated that most respondents were male with an average age of 38.7 years. Most of them did not graduated from secondary-level education. The average number of household members was 6.8, and the number eligible to work as paid laborers   was 3.3. The average resettlement period was 32.5 years. The average size of land holding per household was 4.1 ha. The average annual household income and expenditure were 2,011,434 and 1,973,050 kip respectively (1 baht = 270 kip). In the past, 58.6% of respondents used to attend the forestry training course, 49.5% had received information and news from radio programs and 57.6% had participated the forest resources activities. Their comprehension of forest resource conservation was at a high level (79.8%). People’s opinions on forest resource conservation, opinions on forest resource preservation and protection, forest resource utilization with awareness of the relevant values and forest resource rehabilitation (from a macro point of view) were at the moderate, moderate and  high  respectively. Factors affecting forest resource conservation were the resettlement period, the participation in forest resource activities and knowledge about forest resources conservation. Hence, the related agencies should arrange the relevant training courses in order to provide the knowledge and to create the consciousness in forest resource conservation as well as to encourage people to participate in the various forest resource conservation activities for raising the awareness of forest resource values.

 Key words: opinions, conservation, forest