Motivating Approaches to Biodiversity Conservation: A Case of Forest Dwellers in Nameri National Park of Assam-India

Abstract

This paper highlights the implementation of Forest Rights Act to conserving protected areas in the country; Forest Rights Act (2006) has been passed by the parliament of India with dual aims of protecting the right of forest dwellers and at the same time this Act tries to acquire the involvement of forest dwellers to protect forest/protected areas. The main objective of the paper is to determine the factors which influence motivation to spend efforts in terms of work hour for biodiversity conservation in Nameri National Park. A total of 78 numbers of households were interviewed from two forest villages (i.e. Torajan and Dharikati) and two encroached villages (i.e. Rihajuli and Chopaloga) located in the south buffer of Nameri National Park in Assam during March and June of 2021. Respondents in forests village are more willing to spend effort than that of encroacher’s village to conservation. Sex, age, literacy of the respondents and size of land holdings were found to be significantly related to spending time for biodiversity conservation programme. In this paper attempt has been made to emphasize the nature of motivation of the communities towards biodiversity conservation issues.