Abstract
Protecting nature and securing human livelihood needs are very conflicting especially in biodiversity-rich areas of the Global South. The Taita Hills Cloud Forest (THCF) in Kenya remains one of the top biodiversity hotspots worldwide. Environmental data for the area has been studied for decades. Sociodemographic analyses on inequality have been conducted by governmental and non-governmental organizations. Little has been done yet to correlate them to investigate their relationships. A lot of attention has been paid to the connection between agricultural practices and impacts on the environment, but human–environment relationships are much more complex, especially in Kenya’s biodiversity-rich areas. This paper assesses the local population’s perception of its surrounding environment and investigates their understanding of nature conservation. Using quantitative and qualitative methods, 300 survey respondents were classified concerning their nature ethical views (particularly anthropocentrism and ecocentrism). By using grounded theory, data were regularly reviewed during the entire research, to assemble an evaluable and comparable dataset. Our study reveals that gender has a distinct impact on whether the interviewees have an anthropocentric or ecocentric perspective of nature and conservation. Moreover, there is a strong need for an intermediate bridge between anthropocentrism and ecocentrism.
Highlights
In the Anthropocene period, the world setting seems a dichotomy of ecology and humanity, nature and people [1,2]
This paper focuses on complex human–environment relationships in the central part of the biodiversity hotspot, the Taita Hills Cloud Forest (THCF), in southern Kenya
Our study within the 300 respondents located in the THCF revealed that a greater knowledge about plants than animals does exist, even though some of the respondents were aware of the high endemic biodiversity
Summary
In the Anthropocene period, the world setting seems a dichotomy of ecology and humanity, nature and people [1,2]. While an anthropocentric mindset predicts a moral obligation only towards other human beings, ecocentrism includes all living beings. The answers to binary questions were analyzed and, in the following, the answers to the open questions were evaluated This process is important because a simple “yes” or “no” as an answer is not enough for the interpretation of whether someone’s mindset belongs to anthropocentrism or ecocentrism. It does not even assume that there is one reality and, it fits into the context of the study and its heterogeneity and development [18] It supports the investigation of the why, as mentioned above. Which factors influence the understanding of nature of the rural population in the THCF?
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