FOREST RESOURCES PERCEIVED IMPORTANCE AND DEPENDENCY IN MASIDA COMMUNITY FOREST, ZAMBEZI REGION, NAMIBIA

Abstract

The purpose of the study was to examine the perception of people on forest dependency. Specifically, the study assessed the trend of availability and extraction of forest resources over a period of 10 years, since when the Masida Community Forest was established 2007 until 2017, and determined the level of dependence on identified products. A cross-sectional study was conducted in villages of Masida Community Forest using a semi-structured questionnaire. A total of 185 randomly sampled respondents were interviewed. Likert scale questions were used in examining the usefulness, availability and extraction of forest resources, and assessing the level of dependence on forest resources. Results indicate that people depend on the forest for poles, thatch grass, wild fruits, fodder, firewood and medicinal plants. The results on forest usefulness were subjected to the Pearson’s chi-square test which showed that all these four-scaling differed significantly (p < 0.001) across the six villages. On forest products availability 36% of the respondent perceive firewood to be increasing over the past 10 years, 74% decrease of thatch grass while 85% perceive medicinal plants to have remained unchanged over the same span of years. Furthermore 63% of the respondents reported thatch grass and fodder (40%) as decreasing; 55% reported increasing pole and Wild fruits (56%) harvesting; while 79% and 56% of the respondents reported firewood and medicinal plants not to have changed respectively. Study revealed that people’s level of dependence on forest resource for building materials is perceived to be high (82.2%), high on Income (69.7%) and fodder (43.8%), medium on food (46.5%) and medicinal plants (58.4%). It is recommended that Agroforestry, brickmaking and Apiculture be an appropriate conservation intervention to curb the depletion of forest resources in the area.