Factors Influencing Household Tree Planting Behaviour. A Case Study of Wangchieng Ward, Homabay County
Abstract
The ever-increasing impacts of climate change in sub-Saharan Africa have made many aware and struggle with livelihood options from nature, and the need for households and communities to plant trees can no longer be over-emphasised. Community tree planting is crucial for global environmental sustainability. The information that guided the public in selecting the tree they plant in their private spaces is important, especially to policymakers. This paper was aimed at analysing the factors that influence community tree planting behaviour. The study used a mixed-methods approach that involved both qualitative research using focus groups as well as quantitative research using questionnaires administered to the residents of the ten locations in Wangchieng ward: Homabay County in December 2021. A sample of 380 community households was selected, 38 in each location, through purposive sampling technique and mixed structured questionnaires delivered to them. The questionnaires assessed community attitudes and conservation involvement against the socioeconomic background, benefits, and costs of planting trees. Results showed that most residents of Wangchieng ward have positive attitudes towards tree planting. The data collected from the questionnaires showed that socioeconomic factors such as age, education levels and income were positively related to participation in community tree-planting programs among respondents. A stepwise binary logistics conducted ranked six variables as the major factors influencing household tree planting. The importance of trees was ranked at position one (most influential variable) with an odd ratio of 9.287, and at position six was education level with an odd ratio of 1.207. The full model containing all the variables was statistically significant at χ2 (10, N = 370) = 98.312, p < .001, clearly indicating that the model was able to distinguish respondents who have planted and those who have not planted trees in the last six months. Thus, it is recommended that household tree planting can significantly be enhanced by improving knowledge on the importance of trees, their various ecosystem goods and services, making seedlings cheaply available for households as well as promoting households to do agroforestry in their farmers
Downloads
References
Alassaf, A., Majdalwai, M., & Nawash, O. (2011). Factors affecting farmer’s decision to continue farm activity in marginal areas of jordan. African Journal of Agricultural Research, 6(12), 2755–2760. https://doi.org/10.5897/AJAR11.481
Ashraf, J., Pandey, R., de Jong, W., & Nagar, B. (2015). Factors Influencing Farmers’ Decisions to Plant Trees on Their Farms in Uttar Pradesh, India. Small-Scale Forestry, 14(3), 301–313. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11842-015-9289-7
Atieno, S. (2022). Kenya Achieves 10% National Tree Cover Target – Science Africa. Science Africa. https://scienceafrica.co.ke/2022/05/24/kenya-achieves-10-national-tree-cover-target/
Bukhari, S. A. R. (2021). Sample Size Determination Using Krejcie and Morgan Table. Kenya Projects Organization (KENPRO), February, 607–610. https://doi.org/10.13140/RG.2.2.11445.19687
CIDP. (2022). Homabaycounty government second county integrated development plan 2018- 2022 (draft). 2022.
Ennos, R., Cottrell, J., Hall, J., & O’Brien, D. (2019). Is the introduction of novel exotic forest tree species a rational response to rapid environmental change? – A British perspective. In Forest Ecology and Management (Vol. 432, pp. 718–728). Elsevier B.V. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.foreco.2018.10.018
Faham, E., Rezvanfar, A., & Shamekhi, T. (2008). Analysis of factors influencing motivation of villagers’ participation in activities of social forestry (the case study of west Mazandaran). American Journal of Agricultural and Biological Science, 3(2), 451–456. https://doi.org/10.3844/ajabssp.2008.451.456
Gebreegziabher, Z., Mekonnen, A., Kassie, M., & Köhlin, G. (2020). Household Tree Planting in Tigrai, Northern Ethiopia: Tree Species, Purposes, and Tenure Security. Land Use Policy, 96(432). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.landusepol.2020.104635
Jones, R. E., Davis, K. L., & Bradford, J. (2013). The Value of Trees: Factors Influencing Homeowner Support for Protecting Local Urban Trees. Environment and Behavior, 45(5), 650– 676. https://doi.org/10.1177/0013916512439409
Kagondu, N. (2020). Coronavirus pandemic sparks surge in firewood use in rural Kenya | Reuters. Thomson Reuters Foundation. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-kenya-health-forests-energy-feature-t-idUSKBN27R0XZ
Kampourakis, K. (2014). Charles Darwin and the Origin of Species . Understanding Evolution, 98–126. https://doi.org/10.1017/cbo9781139542357.006
Kenya News Agency. (2022). Kenya surpasses 10% tree cover, assessment report 2021 says – Kenya News Agency. https://www.kenyanews.go.ke/kenya-surpasses-10-tree-cover-assessment-report-2021-says/
Khalwale, T., Langat, D., Abuom, P., & Okoth, S. (2018). Factors Influencing Adoption of on-Farm Tree Planting in. 4(3), 38–48.
KNBS. (2019). Kenya population and housing census volume 1: Population by County and sub-County. In Kenya National Bureau of Statistics: Vol. I (Issue November). https://www.knbs.or.ke/?wpdmpro=2019-kenya-population-and-housing-census-volume-i-population-by-county-and-sub-county
Langat, D. K., Maranga, E. K., Aboud, A. A., & Cheboiwo, J. K. (2016). Role of Forest Resources to Local Livelihoods: The Case of East Mau Forest Ecosystem, Kenya. International Journal of Forestry Research, 2016. https://doi.org/10.1155/2016/4537354
Meijer, S. S., Catacutan, D., Sileshi, G. W., & Nieuwenhuis, M. (2015). Tree planting by smallholder farmers in Malawi: Using the theory of planned behaviour to examine the relationship between attitudes and behaviour. Journal of Environmental Psychology, 43, 1–12. https://doi.org/10.1016/J.JENVP.2015.05.008
MoE&F. (2020). Republic of Kenya Ministry of Environment and Forestry The National Forest Reference Level for REDD+ Implementation.
Nellie Oduor, E. K. and, & Ogutu, C. (2020). Energy in Woody Biomas. September, 8–11.
NEMA. (2019). Environmental Performance Index (EPI): 2018 Homabay County. www.nema.go.ke
Rigal, C., Vaast, P., & Xu, J. (2018). Using farmers’ local knowledge of tree provision of ecosystem services to strengthen the emergence of coffee-agroforestry landscapes in southwest China. PLoS ONE, 13(9), 1–18. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0204046
Saatchi, S. S., Harris, N. L., Brown, S., Lefsky, M., Mitchard, E. T. A., Salas, W., Zutta, B. R., Buermann, W., Lewis, S. L., Hagen, S., Petrova, S., White, L., Silman, M., & Morel, A. (2012). Seeing Forests for the Trees and the Carbon: Mapping the World’s Forests in Three Dimensions. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 108(24), 9899–9904. https://doi.org/10.1073/PNAS.1019576108
Sunil, C., Somashekar, R. K., & Nagaraja, B. C. (2016). Diversity and composition of riparian vegetation across forest and agroecosystem landscapes of river Cauvery, southern India. Tropical Ecology, 57(2), 343–354.
Tefera, S. A. (2016). Determinants of Farmers Decision Making for Plant Eucalyptus Trees in Market District, North Willow , Ethiopia. 6(13), 62–70.
Wang, A. (2022). Scaling Up. In Forbes (Vol. 205, Issue 3).
Copyright (c) 2022 Basil Okoth Kaudo, Antony Ondiwa Okundi, Patrick Mwenja, Everlyne Ikimat Ejore, Jesse Owino
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.