An assessment of incentives for tree planting as an approach to climate change mitigation

Abstract

Forest management activities play a key role in the context of global change and sustainable development through mitigation of climate change. Reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation is the most economically sustainable option for mitigating climate change. Efforts to ensure the sustainability of forests in mitigating climate change require giving incentives to support tree planting and forest management. The main objective of this research was to generate information for strengthening tree planting as a way of mitigating climate change through evaluating the role of incentives in improving tree planting ,determine factors influencing people’s participation in tree planting and determine the attitude of the local people towards tree planting in the study area. The research data was mainly generated by using interview method that was aided by a form as a tool of data collection. Respondents were selected using multi-stage sampling approach basing on the administrative unit. From the two refugee hosting parishes, one parish was randomly selected. And from this selected parish, one refugee hosting village was selected,which had a total of 40 household heads. From these, the sample size of 36 respondents was determined using Krejcie and Morgan formula. And out of the 36 respondents, 56% were men while 44% were women. According to the results obtained, the people had positive attitude towards tree planting , the people received incentives for tree planting but were not appropriate in terms of quantity given and the timeliness. Availability of land, labour and demand for tree products were identified as factors favouring tree planting. Mean while drought, fire, animal destruction and pest attach were the limiting factors to tree planting. In conclusion, the potential to grow trees in Uriama sub-county is high because the people have positive attitude to tree planting. Hence effort has to be put to help the people address the challenges identified.