Farmers' Usage Preferences for Rwanda’s Volcanoes National Park

October 15, 2019 - Ildephonse Musafili, Jean Chrysostome Ngabitsinze, Fidèle Niyitanga, Dave Weatherspoon

Musafili, I., Ngabitsinze, J. C., Niyitanga, F., & Weatherspoon, D. D. (2019). Farmers' Usage Preferences for Rwanda’s Volcanoes National Park. Journal of Agribusiness in Developing and Emerging Economies, Volume 9, Issue 1. 

Abstract

Purpose

Policymakers and stakeholders lack empirical evidence on the effectiveness of community participatory management for agribusiness development and environmental conservation. The purpose of this paper is to assess the management preferences, approaches and practices of farm communities in Rwanda’s Volcanoes National Park (VNP).

Design/methodology/approach

Primary data collected from 191 farmers were used. A choice experiment on current and potential park management practices and utilization levels was conducted along with a survey on socioeconomic, farm and institutional behavior characteristics.

Findings

Results show that farmers prefer preserving VNP resources for the production of agribusiness crops that are low input and environmental friendly and provide high income to farmers in addition to handcraft production to enhance cultural, plant and wild animal tourism development. Farmers highly value integrated stakeholder participatory decision making about the parks natural resources. High-income farmers prefer to restore traditional cultural heritage park sites for recreation, and ancestral intellectual and cultural property rights.

Research limitations/implications

The sample size limited the analysis to a conditional logit model.

Originality/value

This is the first study to assess the management preferences of farm communities in the VNP area.

Authors

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