Community engagement in forest rehabilitation within the context of a tropical island: Insights from praslin, seychelles

Community involvement gained momentum after the establishment of the Terrestrial Restoration Action Society Seychelles (TRASS) in 2009 to address the concerns of forest rehabilitation on the fire ravaged lands on Praslin. This study assesses issues pertaining to community participation in forest rehabilitation and proposes strategies for improvement. Three shared-dialogue workshops and 180 household surveys conducted via a stratified random sampling was applied for the data collection. The collected data was analyzed using the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) version 20. Results indicated that arson, accidents during agricultural practices, negligence during rubbish burning, cigarettes butts on trails and harvesting wild honey as well as the extended drought period during the dry season are the predominant causes of forest fires on Praslin. Membership in a community-based organization was the only determinant that influenced household participation in forest rehabilitation while other factors such as household size, age, gender and number of schooling years were not significant. Most benefits of forest rehabilitation were perceived in-kind rather than financial through the provisioning of ecosystem goods and services. Technical challenges manifesting in the form of inadequate knowledge and skills for tree planting on very steep slopes often covered with boulders and also exposed to soil erosion were of greater concern. This reinforces the point that forest rehabilitation needs to be adaptive to local conditions in order for it to prevail and it is a learning-by-doing process to develop the best practices that can ensure greater success. Lastly, some proposed strategies for improvement of rehabilitation programmes include awareness and education campaigns, additional manpower, the development of an efficient monitoring and evaluation system, conducting regular enrichment planting, and also greater involvement of community members at the planning stage but also during the execution of forest rehabilitation programmes.