DETERMINANTS OF LOCAL COMMUNITY’S WILLINGNESS TO PAY FOR FOREST CONSERVATION IN EVERGREEN AFROMONTANE ECOSYSTEM OF SOUTHWEST ETHIOPIA

Human beings largely depend on ecosystem services obtained from nature. Here, we examined the local communities’ willingness to pay for improving forest conservation and the determinants in southwest Ethiopia. For this, firstly, the peasant associations were randomly sampled; one from the edge of the forests and three others each at 5km differences, secondly, from each peasant association, 30 sample households were randomly selected for questionnaire survey. The first sample household was selected by throwing the stick to the sky and following the direction of the stick head. We tested the effects of the socioeconomic variables on the households’ willingness to pay for forest conservation employing a logistic regression model analysis with probit function using aod package and the effect of locations of households from forest edges on the amount of bids of willingness per month was analyzed using one-way ANOVA within R statistical program. The results revealed that 104 (86.7%) of the households accepted the arbitrarily offered initial bid. The mean monthly willingness to pay is 1.1 (range: 0.36–4.46) USD. The educational level, income status, whether trained or not on the importance of forest conservation, land possession status and locations of the households from forest edges were the determinants of the local community’s willingness to pay for conservation (P<0.01). The bids offered by households for forest conservation increased with increasing the monthly income was higher at the intermediate location from forest edges. Besides the factors such as education, income and land possession, training the farmers can enhance the communities' commitment to forest biodiversity conservation. Our overall results suggest that awareness creation training and enhancing the livelihood options of the local communities may play substantial roles in increasing the willingness to pay of the households for improving the conservation of the sheka forest in southwest Ethiopia.