Among the reasons for such decline is a continuously adverse impacts of climate change and other evolving challenges related to natural forests. However, the declining resilience of forests and agricultural sectors particularly in South Africa is relatively problematic and a real public policy challenge ( Xulu et al., 2018 Marunda et al., 2020). Most of such common natural forest resources are referred to as Non-Timber Forest Products (NTFPs), including wild spinaches, fuelwood, charcoal, wooden utensils, grass fodder, thatching materials, medical plants, edible fruits, construction poles, bark, roots, tubers, leaves, flowers, seeds, resins, honey, and mushrooms ( Gautam, 2009). They have demonstrated to economically dis-advantaged households that they can satisfy everyday necessities such as energy, shelter, medicine, cash incomes, and employment ( Kaoma and Shackleton, 2015 Ofoegbu et al., 2017 Opperman et al., 2018 Xu et al., 2019 Leaver and Cherry, 2020 Dalu et al., 2021). Additionally, legislative changes are needed to help rural residents sustainably support their livelihoods and diversify their sources of income to build resilience and ease pressure on natural forests.įorest resources continue to play an important role to rural communities in developing countries in terms of services, products, and incomes. These findings imply that institutional arrangements for programs like the “ Wildlands Project” need to be developed from the beginning with the participation of all pertinent stakeholders for everyone to accept it and understand the regulations. The empirical findings showed that the contribution of forest resources to rural livelihoods is significantly influenced by off-farm incomes, employment incomes, forest vouchers received from the “ Wildlands Project” in exchange for planting trees, values of household assets, changing of time and dates in visiting the forest for the collection of forest products, and perceived changes in temperature. Employing survey data from 150 forest-dependent households and a logit-transformed Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) model, the study found that there is significant level of forest dependence in the study area. This study investigated factors affecting rural household level of forest dependence and the contribution of natural forests to rural household livelihoods in the “KwaZulu-Natal Sandstone Sourveld (KZNSS)” ecosystem. Little is known about the determinants of rural community dependence on natural forests, and the importance of this dependence to rural livelihoods and environmental outcomes. However, the declining resilience of forests and agricultural sectors particularly in South Africa is concerning and a real public policy challenge. Natural forest resources are the most accessible sources of services, products and incomes for many adjacent rural communities.
2Department of Agricultural Economics and Animal Production, School of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, Faculty of Science and Agriculture, University of Limpopo, Limpopo, South Africa.
#2009 forest dash free#
1Department of Agricultural Economics, Faculty of Natural and Agricultural Sciences, University of the Free State, Bloemfontein, South Africa.Edilegnaw Wale 1*, Mmaphuti Andrias Nkoana 2 and Eliaza Mkuna 1
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