Community’s forest dependency and its effects towards the forest resources and wildlife abundances in Sarawak, Malaysia

Abstract

Forests play an important role in the community’s livelihood, and this role has created an important relationship or mutual dependence between the forest and the community. Therefore, this study was conducted to identify the types of community’s forest dependency and to identify the effects of community’s forest dependency towards forest resources and wildlife abundance. The data were collected using the self-administered questionnaire, involving 204 community members in Bau District, Sarawak. The results show that the common types of forest dependency are private land ownership, land area of less than 10 acres, less than 50 meters of house distance to forest, land utilization for house site and agriculture purposes, and estimated income and expenditure of less than RM 1000. The land use–paddy field, forest resources–handicraft and forest resources–water source significantly predict the abundance of forest cover. The land use–house site, house distance to forest and forest resources–hunting significantly predict the wildlife abundance. The forest resources–house material and forest resources–water source significantly predict the water source quality. The community’s forest dependency needs to be revisited to further understand the community’s needs and how this dependency can be made more sustainable, while less destructing the forest. Hence, a sustainable framework involving all stakeholders is needed to manage the community’s forest dependency.

Keywords:

• community forestry
• native people
• landownership
• forest product
• forest economics

Acknowledgements

We would like to acknowledge the community members in Bau District for their cooperation in completing this study. We also would like to thank Bau District Office, Universiti Malaysia Sabah (UMS) and other relevant authorities for permitting us to conduct this research as well as assisting us with data and relevant logistical support. Last but not least, we would like to acknowledge the comments and critics made by the anonymous reviewers that greatly improved the quality of this paper.

ORCID

Julia Nelson http://orcid.org/0000-0002-9346-8563

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Rufford Small Grants for Nature Conservation by The Rufford Foundation [13988-1].