Impacts of Madhupur National Park on Local Peoples’ Livelihood

Abstract

In this study, the impact of Madhupur National Park on local peoples’ livelihoods was assessed. To find local peoples perception on collaborative natural resources management. This study was conducted from July, 2012 to December, 2012 on two villages named Talki and Sholakuri. Data collection was based on stratified random sample. Stratification was based on park proximity of respondent households that is (inside park) 0 km, 0.5 km distance, 1 km distance, 1.5 km distance and 2 km distance from Madhupur National Park boundary. The five strata were compared with respect to household’s natural resource dependency, household’s income, income diversification, income level, assets and perception on present management system. Present management system was also discussed to emphasize park management authority contribution on local livelihood. Based on analysis of collected data from two villages it was assumed that the nearest people were more dependent on natural resource of park than far people. The simple correlation coefficient for the distance of household with natural resource dependency was negatively significant. Household average monthly incomes in two villages were approximately same but Talki villagers were 79.25% depend on park related activity and this dependency decreased with increasing of distance. Present park management system plays an important role to reduce people and park animosity by providing aid and training to the local offensive persons and involve them into park conservation. A trend analysis of decreasing forest offences represented that, the present management system is better than past time and it could be able to reduce people park animosity.DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.3329/jesnr.v5i2.14603 J. Environ. Sci. & Natural Resources, 5(2): 63-66 2012