Willingness of Ibadan residents to plant trees to commemorate social events

Abstract

Trees in cities contribute significantly to human health and environmental quality, thus, planting trees to Commemorate Social Events (CSEs) can be a unique green gift that celebrate people while also restoring urban environmental quality. This research examined respondents’ willingness to plant trees to CSEs in order to promote sustainable greening of Ibadan. A multistage random sampling procedure was used to obtain primary data from 450 respondents from five purposively selected local government areas. Data were subjected to descriptive statistics and logit regression analysis. Results showed that 57.8% respondents were male, 56.2% were married and 95.3% had formal education. Furthermore, 62.1% stated that trees were present in their environment; 78.4% agreed that trees are valuable and useful resources, and thus they are willing to plant trees to CSEs. The following factors were mentioned by respondents as motivating factors for tree planting: guaranteed investment after retirement (60.5%), knowledge of global environmental issues (67.9%), guaranteed alternative source of income (73.5%), and securing of land from land grabbers (63.5%). Age (-0.030) had a significant influence on willingness to plant trees to CSEs. Residents believe that tree planting is a good initiative; however, incentives should be provided to increase individual participation.