Valuing habitat protection:the case of Ruthumbi forest in Kenya

Abstract

The protection and preservation of natural forests generates a wide variety of market and non­ market benefits, which, individuals derive through consumptive or non-consumptive uses. Benefitsaccruing from consumptive use include timber, fuelwood, medicinal and pharmaceutical products,and forage if existing policies allow extraction. Benefits such as recreation, ecotourism, protection of critical watersheds, carbon sequestration and climate regulation are non­ consumptive.

This study made use of contingent valuation method to find rural households' value of protecting and preserving Ruthumbi forest in Eastern Kenya, which is currently undergoing high deforestation. We found that the underlying reason for the high deforestation is public policy failure with respect to enforcement and monitoring state's ownership rights. This has made the forest a de facto open-access resource with traders in forest products and rural households exploitingthe forest without restraint. The Tobit model with sample selection was adopted since we were expecting to get invalid responses especially of the protest zero type. The analysis confirmedthis because the coefficient testing for sample selection bias, (rho, p) in the estimated models was significant at 1 percent level. The probit analysis revealed age of respondents and household income to significantly influence the probability of giving a valid response. The parameterestimates for these variables were negative and positive respectively.

, The corrected regression part of the model was used in the analyses of the determinants of willingness to pay. Again, age of the respondents and household income were found to be significant. The parameter estimate for age was negative whilst that for income was positive. Moreover, we found the mean monthly willingness to pay per household for protection and preservation of the forest to be KSh. 125. This value may seem low, as it constitutes a 2.1 % proportion of the average monthly income for the subsistence farm households surveyed. Nevertheless, there is a justification for this. Our final good was establishment of communal ownership and management of the forest and the payment vehicle was a communal standing fund. The money was to be used for paying guards and allowances to the members of a local . court - a "Njuri" - whose main duties would be to oversee the project and to settle any disputes. In addition, given that in this arrangement each household would be required to contribute substantiallyin non-monetary terms, we can thus say that the monthly KSh. 125 per household was quite a reasonable amount.

Therefore, given that the monthly payment per household was 'reasonable' and following the fact that the literacy levels are low in rural Kenya where the study was based, we concluded that contingent valuation exercises will be a success in a developing country context as long as designand implementation focus on real issues affecting households