dc.description.abstract |
Forest ecosystem resources are critical to forest-fringe rural households who depend on it
to sustain their livelihood outcome like alleviating household poverty. The importance of
forest ecosystem resources has long been recognized but has seldom been quantified and
analyzed. In this paper, we examine distributional and poverty effects of forest ecosystem
resource extraction among households living along forest peripheries in Eastern Mau forest
reserve. Primary data was collected from forest-fringe rural households living four
kilometers from the forest margin. This study site was purposively selected to be within six administrative locations that straddle Molo and Njoro sub-counties. Semi-structured
questionnaire survey instruments and interviews were used to generate the data. The main
objective of the study was to determine the effect of forest-based income in poverty
alleviation on forest-fringe rural households. The marginal impact of forest-based income
on total household income was computed to analyze the effect of forest-based income on
household poverty. Similarly, Foster-Greer-Thorbecke (FGT (α)) poverty indices were used
to decompose diverse household income components. The model was used to determine the
impact of each household income component on (FGT (α)) poverty indices. The (FGT (α))
poverty indices revealed the marginal impact of forest-based income on household
headcount poverty (FGT (α=0)) which reduced from 0.497 to 0.421, indicating a reduction in
measured household poverty by 15.86%. Also, forest ecosystem resources contribute
approximately 12% to total household income. The paper concludes that forest ecosystem
resources have a significant role in alleviating household poverty. As such, it recommends
to state-actors to formulate governance structures and policies that concomitantly enhance
efficient conservation and management of forest ecosystem resources while embedding
sustainable household livelihood outcomes. |
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