Abstract
The West Usambara landscape is a complex ecosystem in Tanzania known for its rich biodiversity and livelihood support within and beyond its scope. The community dependency on this forest places pressure on its resources, so this forest requires better management strategies. Previous studies on forest conservation ignored details on the heterogeneity of forest users around the forest fringes. Part of the challenge is to understand the characteristics, behavior, and variability of forest users to plan and inform management decisions. This study is an attempt to assess typologies of forest users, their perceptions, and their motivations for understanding better forest management and utilization. The data were collected from 159 randomly sampled households located in four villages bordering the forests, supplemented with focus group discussions and key informant interviews. A factor analysis identified three management and two utilization dimensions, while cluster analysis identified three typologies: high (HFIS), medium (MFIS), and low (LFIS) forest users. The typologies varied in their socioeconomic characteristics, management, and utilization index. The management and utilization index varied from low for HFIS and MFIS to medium for LFIS, indicating a possible difference in resource utilization as well as incentives for management efforts. A multinomial logit indicated further that age, training, and livestock ownership limited upward trends in forest utilization. These findings indicate that, to improve forest management in West Usambara, different management prescriptions are required to respond to the characteristics and variability of forest users (along typologies). Moreover, forest-linked income-generating activities should be encouraged to improve forest income and motivate villagers’ engagement in the forest activities.
Highlights
Mountainous areas, especially those with high landscape variability, support the livelihood strategies of many communities worldwide
This section describes the socioeconomic and demographic characteristics of the study population and elaborates the findings based on the study objectives, where the typologies of forest users were identified, their perceptions of management and utilization were assessed, their socioeconomic characteristics were evaluated, and the factors influencing the typologies of forest utilization were identified
The findings revealed an interesting situation in the West Usambara Mountains (WUMs), as forest user typologies were concerned with the low levels of engagement in decision-making through meetings
Summary
Mountainous areas, especially those with high landscape variability, support the livelihood strategies of many communities worldwide. The management of mountain ecosystems for their resources deserves special consideration because of the high levels of poverty and food insecurity in mountain areas compared to lowland areas [1]. Due to their importance, mountain forests are given special consideration in Agenda 2030 of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), in which target 15.4 of SDG 15 (Life on Land) places special emphasis on the benefits of mountain ecosystem conservation [2]. The pressure on mountains creates conservation problems requiring policies informed by comprehensive research. Understanding the linkage between nature and community around these mountains is paramount to formulate and implement decisive policies [3] that can improve the conservation and management of the mountain landscapes
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