Local People's Attitudes towards the Community Forestry-The Case Studies in the Central Dry Zone of Myanmar

In Myanmar, the forests of the Local Supply Working Cycles (LSWC) are to be transformed into the Community Forests (CF). However, only 42,147 ha of the community forests could be established and put under the management of 572 Community Forestry Users Groups (CFUG) by the end of April 2010 and most were developed with the aids of the international organizations. Therefore, the community forestry development was still very limited in Myanmar. On the other hand, the CF program did not get full participation of all local residents. While some villagers of a community joined the CF program, some did not in some cases. In this study, it was investigated to know in what, way the two groups of CF users and non-CF users were socio-economically different. In addition, the attitudes of non-CF users towards the CF program were also explored. The interview surveys using questionnaires were conducted in 2009 and 2010. The study found that CF users were socio-economically higher than non-CF users in general. Out of non CF users, the middle-classed villagers showed their interest in the program while the poor and the rich did not. To make the program a pro-poor, some additional incentives relevant to the poor such as Payment for the Environmental Service (PES) scheme should be added in the CF program.