Abstract:
Forests are believed to play critical ecological, social, cultural, and economic role to the livelihoods of smallholder farmers in Kenya and even all over the world. Forestry Provisioning Ecosystem Services (FPES) contribute significantly to smallholder farmers‘ livelihoods though this contribution is sometimes not accounted for. Understanding the role played by FPES to the livelihood of smallscale farmers is crucial for sustainable management of the forest resources. This study therefore sought to investigate the contribution of FPES to the livelihoods of smallholder farmers adjacent Chyulu hills forest, Makueni County. The specific study objectives were to; (i) Identify the type of FPES provided by Chyulu hills forest to the adjacent communities (ii) Evaluate the contribution of FPES to the household income of smallholder farmers adjacent Chyulu hills forest and (iii) Assess factors influencing utilization of the Chyulu hills FPES. A survey research design was used. Stratified and purposive sampling methods were used to select the specific study Sub-locations. A sample size of 62 respondents was selected in the two Sub-locations using the coefficient of variation method (Nassiuma, 2000). Frequency distribution was used to determine the type of FPES extracted from Chyulu hills forest and the contribution of FPES to the household income of smallscale farmers. Logit regression model was used to analyze data on factors influencing utilization of the Chyulu hills forest. The results established that farmers in both Sub-locations extracted FPES with the 37.5% and 64.3% of the respondents in Mang‘elete and Kiu Sub-locations, respectively extracting the services from the forest. The types of FPES extracted from Chyulu hills forest were mainly food and medicinal plants. In Mang‘elete Sub-location, the most extracted food material was vegetables (44.4%) while in Kiu Sub-location honey was the most extracted at 87.5%. In Mang‘elete the most extracted herbal was Terminalia brownie (52.4%) while in Kiu Sub-location the most extracted was Grewia bicolor (60.9%). Results further showed that FPES contributed a substantial amount of money to the income of the respondents with total mean income from FPES in the two Sub-locations being Ksh 811.36 (8.4%) while that from other sources such as farming being Ksh 8,907.53 (91.6%). There was a significant difference between the monthly mean incomes (Mang‘elete (M= 355.56, SD= 1,252.04) and Kiu (M= 1,267.17, SD=3,085.60, t (58) = -2.26, p<0.05) accrued from the sale of forest products. Logit regression results showed that occupation of the household head, distance from Chyulu hills forest and presence of fence significantly (p<0.05) influenced utilization of Chyulu hills FPES in Kiu and Mang‘elete Sub-locations. The study concluded that forest dependency is a reality irrespective of whether legal or illegal. It is recommended that conservation be enhanced by creating awareness of forest benefits to the community and training them on sustainable use of resources.
