Research Area 2 "Land Use and Governance", Working group: Sustainable Land Use in Developing Countries, Leibniz Centre for Agricultural Landscape Research (ZALF), Eberswalder Straße 84, 15374, Müncheberg, Germany; Department of Forestry, Environment and Wildlife, Government of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan.
Kerala Agricultural University, Regional Agricultural Research Station, Kumarakom, Kerala, India.
Sci Total Environ. 2021 Jun 10;772:145613. doi: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2021.145613. Epub 2021 Feb 4.
The Billion Trees Afforestation Project (BTAP) was launched in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) province of Pakistan to conserve existing forests and to increase the area under forest cover. It also aimed to restore environmental conditions, promote rural livelihoods and reduce poverty. To improve the effectiveness of afforestation projects, it is essential to know the role of various factors and their impacts on community participation in landscape restoration. However, these factors and their impacts remain unexplored for the BTAP. This study identifies the factors that influenced rural household participation in the BTAP in Pakistan. The data were collected from participants and nonparticipants in the BTAP as well as from various officials. We employed both qualitative and quantitative methods to analyze the data. The results of the focus group discussions and the professional evaluation of the BTAP revealed that participant farmers enjoyed all the benefits of the project at the individual and community levels. However, the project provided only partial benefits to nonparticipant farmers at both levels. The household-level results showed that age, income from forest resources, a friendly relationship with forest department staff, a risk-bearing attitude and membership or involvement in village development committee activities had positive and significant effects on farmer participation, while disputes over land and forest resources, household size and experience with/dependence on livestock farming had negative and significant impacts on farmer participation in the BTAP. Our results suggest that policymakers and project designers should pay more attention to the factors that hindered farmer participation in the BTAP. The participation of landless and disadvantaged groups in the 10-BTAP should be increased to ensure equal and widespread benefits for all users and to ensure a win-win situation of sustainable management of the forest, the environment and livelihood opportunities for all types of forest users.
巴基斯坦开伯尔-普赫图赫瓦省启动了“十亿树木造林计划”（BTAP），旨在保护现有森林并增加森林覆盖率。该计划还旨在恢复环境条件、促进农村生计并减少贫困。为了提高造林项目的成效，了解各种因素及其对社区参与景观恢复的影响至关重要。然而，对于 BTAP 来说，这些因素及其影响仍未得到探索。本研究旨在确定影响巴基斯坦农村家庭参与 BTAP 的因素。数据是从 BTAP 的参与者和非参与者以及来自不同官员的参与者那里收集的。我们采用了定性和定量方法来分析数据。焦点小组讨论和 BTAP 的专业评估结果表明，参与项目的农民在个人和社区层面上都享受到了项目的所有好处。然而，该项目在这两个层面上只给非参与项目的农民提供了部分好处。家庭层面的结果表明，年龄、森林资源收入、与森林部门工作人员的友好关系、承担风险的态度以及是否参加村庄发展委员会的活动，对农民参与项目有积极且显著的影响，而土地和森林资源纠纷、家庭规模以及对牲畜养殖的经验和依赖，则对农民参与 BTAP 有消极且显著的影响。我们的结果表明，政策制定者和项目设计者应更加关注阻碍农民参与 BTAP 的因素。应增加无地和弱势群体在 10-BTAP 中的参与度，以确保所有用户都能平等和广泛地受益，并确保实现森林、环境的可持续管理以及所有类型森林用户的生计机会的双赢局面。
