Abstract
Forests are considered the second most important natural resource after water throughout the world. There is need to undertake review of policies and legislation on forestry to incorporate aspects of Participatory Forest Management to conserve and manage resources in a sustainable way. The paper sought to determine the extent to which Participatory evaluation influences conservation of Mau Forest programme. This study was guided by descriptive survey and correlational research designs. A sample size of 364 respondents was drawn from a target population of 4100 people using Yamane (1967) Formula.From the findings, r = -0.048 indicated that there was a weak negative linear correlation between Participatory evaluation and Conservation of Mau Forest programme. With a p-value=0.43), the null hypothesis was not rejected and recommended that there is need to do a holistic analysis of local people, their livelihood assets and strategies, resource-use patterns and power relations before the implementation of conservation programs.
Highlights
The world forest area is just over 4 billion hectares, equal to 31% of the total area and averaging 0.6 ha per capita (FAO, 2010)
The paper targeted 4,100 participants comprising of 50 Kenya forest service officers (KFS), 100 chairpersons of community Forest Associations(CFAs) of the and 3,950 households residing adjacent to Bomet County's South-West Mau forest
The findings indicate that an improvement in conducting participatory evaluation by the Kenya Forest Service and Community Forest Association members leads to effective conservation programmes in Mau Forest
Summary
The world forest area is just over 4 billion hectares, equal to 31% of the total area and averaging 0.6 ha per capita (FAO, 2010). Forests are considered the second most important natural resource after water throughout the world. Forest industries globally are supplying jobs to about 60 million people, with around one billion depending on medicinal products from forest plants (World Bank 2006). They act as a source of food, oxygen, housing, leisure and spiritual sustenance and provides raw material to over 5000 commercially traded products varying from clothing to pharmaceuticals and timber products (CBD 2009). In terms of the cultural, social and economic value of forests (Abass 2007), humans have traditionally attributed a moral, metaphysical and esthetic importance to the forest
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