{"title":"Superstition and attitudes towards restoration of a mining-degraded forest reserve: Evidence from Ghana","authors":"","doi":"10.1016/j.forpol.2024.103297","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>Forest restoration has become a worldwide phenomenon to minimise the effects of climate change and global warming. However, in most cases, especially in Africa, communities around forests usually have a cultural attachment to these forests. Consequently, the preferences of fringing communities are important to ensure sustainable forest management. However, there seems to be a lack of understanding about how superstition may affect the attitudes of local communities towards forest restoration. This study aimed to examine the effect of superstition on household attitudes and preferences for restoring the Bonsa River Forest Reserve. Primary data was collected from 611 respondents in the Prestea-Huni Valley Municipality in the Western Region of Ghana and were analysed using mixed logit (ML) and generalized multinomial logit (G-MNL) models. The findings revealed that very superstitious respondents preferred the tree species attributes but did not prefer the soil amendment, backfilling of mined-out areas and biodiversity attributes. These results indicate that local community superstitions should be incorporated into the planning and decision-making process regarding forest restoration management.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":12451,"journal":{"name":"Forest Policy and Economics","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":4.0000,"publicationDate":"2024-07-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Forest Policy and Economics","FirstCategoryId":"97","ListUrlMain":"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1389934124001515","RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"农林科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"ECONOMICS","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Forest restoration has become a worldwide phenomenon to minimise the effects of climate change and global warming. However, in most cases, especially in Africa, communities around forests usually have a cultural attachment to these forests. Consequently, the preferences of fringing communities are important to ensure sustainable forest management. However, there seems to be a lack of understanding about how superstition may affect the attitudes of local communities towards forest restoration. This study aimed to examine the effect of superstition on household attitudes and preferences for restoring the Bonsa River Forest Reserve. Primary data was collected from 611 respondents in the Prestea-Huni Valley Municipality in the Western Region of Ghana and were analysed using mixed logit (ML) and generalized multinomial logit (G-MNL) models. The findings revealed that very superstitious respondents preferred the tree species attributes but did not prefer the soil amendment, backfilling of mined-out areas and biodiversity attributes. These results indicate that local community superstitions should be incorporated into the planning and decision-making process regarding forest restoration management.
期刊介绍:
Forest Policy and Economics is a leading scientific journal that publishes peer-reviewed policy and economics research relating to forests, forested landscapes, forest-related industries, and other forest-relevant land uses. It also welcomes contributions from other social sciences and humanities perspectives that make clear theoretical, conceptual and methodological contributions to the existing state-of-the-art literature on forests and related land use systems. These disciplines include, but are not limited to, sociology, anthropology, human geography, history, jurisprudence, planning, development studies, and psychology research on forests. Forest Policy and Economics is global in scope and publishes multiple article types of high scientific standard. Acceptance for publication is subject to a double-blind peer-review process.