Abstract
Gazetted forests in Kenya are owned and managed by the government through Kenya Forest Service. Other stakeholders including communities formally participate in forest management through Participatory Forest Management, concessions and leasehold. In each management regime the forest has to be well managed and the community continue accessing forest products. The aim of this paper was to investigate whether Community Forest Association activities lead to improved forest cover in a leased forest. The study adopted a descriptive survey design where both qualitative data and satellite data was collected. A sample size of 139 individuals was issued with questionnaires and 5 key informants were interviewed. Satellite imagery was used to quantify changes and trends in forest cover of Kibwezi forest for ten years. Findings of the study established that infrastructural development had a great effect on destruction of forest cover in Kibwezi forest. There was significance relationship between community participation and improvement of forest since Chi square results were (χ<sup>2</sup> =27.631, df=9, 0.001). This research recommends that there should be deliberate action by stakeholders to give community forest association incentives to operate optimally. The improvement of the forest was partially contributed by presence of community forest association during inception of project but later David Sheldrick Trust which fenced the forest.
Highlights
Rapid dryland forests cover change has attracted global attention for urgent actions by all stakeholders to ensure it is conserved because it is an important ecosystem [1]
The household respondents indicated that charcoal burning had an influence on forest cover with
The respondents (72%) perceived that infrastructure had an influence on forest cover in Kibwezi forest while 28% did not agree
Summary
Rapid dryland forests cover change has attracted global attention for urgent actions by all stakeholders to ensure it is conserved because it is an important ecosystem [1]. The first Forest Research Assessment (FRA) in 1948 showed that the world had 66% of its land covered by forest; more than half of this area had been deforested by 2018 because globally, only 30.6% of total land area was covered by forest in the year 2018 [2] This is an acute reduction from findings contained in FRA 2015 report which showed 31.6% of land was covered by forest in 1990 [3]. If this trend continues, it will take about one century for the world forest to be completely cleared. Kenya has a forest cover of 7.8% [3]
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