Improving Cooperation among Farmers for Communal Land Conservation in Ethiopia: A Public Goods Experiment

Abstract

Farmers in developing countries depend on communal natural resources, yet countries in Sub-Saharan Africa are facing the severe degradation of communal lands due to the so-called “tragedy of the commons”. For the sustainable management of common resources, policy interventions, such as farmer seminars, are necessary to ensure high-level cooperation among farmers for land conservation. However, the effects of this type of information provision are not well known. The purpose of this study is to examine the effects of the dissemination of conservation information on collaborative communal forest management using an economic field experiment with 936 farmers selected by random sampling from 11 villages in the northern Ethiopian Highlands. We conducted a public goods game experiment using a framework of voluntary contribution to communal land conservation with an intervention to remind participants about the consequence of their behaviors. The results show that the volunteer contribution increased after the intervention, and thereafter the decay of the contribution was slow. The results indicate that providing information about the consequences leads to a higher contribution. The effects of information provision are heterogeneous in terms of social condition, such as access to an urban area and social capital, and individual characteristics, such as wealth. These findings imply that information provision effectively improves farmer collaboration toward natural resource conservation in developing countries.

Communal land conservation in northern Ethiopia: The relationship between urban area access and individual and social norms

“…Consequently, local farmers' awareness of conservation has significantly improved (Moges & Taye, 2017) since they realized the benefits of rehabilitation of communal lands (Berhe & Hoag, 2014; Meaza et al, 2016; Negash et al, 2020). Norms relating to communal land conservation were also established during the last few decades (Oniki, Berhe, et al, 2020; Oniki, Etsay, et al, 2020).…”

Social Capital and Sustainability in Oil Palm Sector

“…A study by Oniki et al (2020) explored the history of oil palm development in Nicaragua in the 20th century during highly challenging political and economic change. In the 1980s, due to the reform of the agrarian revolution of the Sandinistas, the political situation and economic strategy changed completely.…”

The Watershed Communal Land Management and Livelihood of Rural Households in Kilte Awlaelo Woreda, Tigray Region, Ethiopia

“…5 Safety net is a food-for-work and social security program funded by the government of Ethiopia and a consortium of international funding agencies aimed at building private and community assets through creating employment for poor households in which the entitled households are supposed to work on watershed development activities. 6 ETB is the currency of Ethiopia. The model scrutinizes the effect of communal land conservation on the food security of households by eliciting the benefits that the community harnesses from communal lands.…”

“…Moreover, the most vulnerable populations to the harmful effects of the degradation of natural resources are rural people whose primary incomes derive directly from the natural resources base. However, well-managed communal lands can tackle the land degradation problem and generate a flow of benefits that provide the basis for improving the livelihood condition at the household level [6]. It can also contribute to achieving sustainable economic growth at the aggregate level.…”

“…As a response, several interventions have been tried to reverse the environmental degradation in the region such as the conservation of communal lands. Community-based watershed development approach is one of the interventions that has received due attention, particularly in the Tigray region [6]. In the entire region, conserving communal resources such as communal forests, grazing lands, and other bio-physical resources is an integral part and parcel of the watershed development initiatives [18,[20][21][22].…”