Superstition and attitudes towards restoration of a mining-degraded forest reserve: Evidence from Ghana

Lilian Arthur, Godwin Kofi Vondolia and Isaac Dasmani

Forest Policy and Economics, 2024, vol. 168, issue C

Abstract: Forest restoration has become a worldwide phenomenon to minimise the effects of climate change and global warming. However, in most cases, especially in Africa, communities around forests usually have a cultural attachment to these forests. Consequently, the preferences of fringing communities are important to ensure sustainable forest management. However, there seems to be a lack of understanding about how superstition may affect the attitudes of local communities towards forest restoration. This study aimed to examine the effect of superstition on household attitudes and preferences for restoring the Bonsa River Forest Reserve. Primary data was collected from 611 respondents in the Prestea-Huni Valley Municipality in the Western Region of Ghana and were analysed using mixed logit (ML) and generalized multinomial logit (G-MNL) models. The findings revealed that very superstitious respondents preferred the tree species attributes but did not prefer the soil amendment, backfilling of mined-out areas and biodiversity attributes. These results indicate that local community superstitions should be incorporated into the planning and decision-making process regarding forest restoration management.

Keywords: Bonsa River Forest Reserve; Choice experiment; Superstition; Forest restoration; Illegal mining; Ghana (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1389934124001515
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:forpol:v:168:y:2024:i:c:s1389934124001515

DOI: 10.1016/j.forpol.2024.103297

Access Statistics for this article

Forest Policy and Economics is currently edited by M. Krott

More articles in Forest Policy and Economics from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().