DRIVERS OF NATURAL RESOURCES CONSERVATION AND PARTICIPATION IN FOREST DEVELOPMENT PROGRAMMES- A SOCIO ECONOMIC ANALYSIS OF FOREST DWELLERS’ ROLE IN SITTILINGI VALLEY FORESTS OF TAMIL NADU

Abstract

This study aims at investigating the links between forest dwellers’ participation in afforestation and development of forest areas in Sittilingi valley of Dharmapuri district in Tamil Nadu and a set of socio-economic variables. A sample of 50 forest dwellers each in Sittilingi and Naikuthi village of the valley was selected to get a sample size of100 by proportional random sampling. The result of the content validity of questionnaire (Cronbach's alpha) showed that the selected variable had high reliability. Traditional Diffusion Model of Rogerts was employed to analyse the forest dwellers’ awareness, willingness and participation in afforestation and other forest development programmes. The findings revealed that age, participation in capacity building programmes, forest dependency, social participation, social solidarity, economic and social motivations are positively and significantly correlated with forest dwellers' participation in afforestation and development of forest areas. About 77 per cent of the forest dwellers expected good quality of water for conserving their natural resources. Financial and technical assistances are preferred equally by the residents of the valley as subsidy measure to adopt conservation measures. Sixty per cent of the forest dwellers were against allocating any money from their own for resource conservation. At the same time valley residents were positive towards natural resources conservation within the valley. Forest dwellers are ready to plant trees around their farm lands and homes but they felt otherwise when the case of planting in common lands and degraded land  arise since they felt planting in such areas as the duty of the government. Thus the prioritization of the forest dwellers was personally inclined. Variables like, attitude, knowledge, concern for biodiversity and concern for soil fertility were significantly influencing the forest dwellers to allocate economic resources in natural resources conservation programmes in the valley. The result of multiple regression showed that variables of level of participation in capacity building programmes, size of household, age, economic motivation, social solidarity and level of literacy could explain 51.4 per cent of the variation in the level of forest dwellers' participation in afforestation and other development activities of forest areas.