PEOPLE PARTICIPATION IN FOREST FIRE CONTROL SURROUNDING PHU RUEA NATIONAL PARK, LOEI PROVINCE

Abstract

Objectives of the study were to determine the socio-economic condition and to find the relationships between socio-economic factors and people participation in forest fire control of the residing Phu Ruea National Park Loei Province. The designed questionnaire was used as a tool for gathering the data by interviewing 323 sample household heads or the representative and the data was analyzed by using statistical computer programme. The statistical values calculation were percent, mean, maximum, minimum and chi-square with the given statistical significance level of 0.05. The results of the study indicated that the most respondent was male and their average age was 46.49 years. The average number of household member was 5.05 and 77.1 percent, most of them had never attended any training course. They mostly received information from the government officers. Their residing areas were far from the boundary of the national park, less than 2 km. The cultivated land was adjacent to the boundary of the national park. The most respondents occupied, their own land with an area less than 10 rai. Their main occupation was agriculture and their average household income was 36.570.03 bath/annum. They collected forest products for food and other uses. Occurrence of forest fire in the communities averaged 5 times a year, and they used knife, axe, saw as the tools in the forest fire control. The people used to practice prescribed burning for weed control and having well knowledge about forest fire. The factors related to people participation in forest fire control surrounding Phu Ruea National Park were being the membership of the social group, attending the training course handled by foresters, received information about forest fire prevention, having subsidiary occupation, households income, distance between cultivated land and forest area, having knowledge of forest fire and often use fire as a tool for agricultural and pre-plants.