Meta-analysis of people’s participation in community forest management in Northern Thailand

Abstract

Due to environmental crisis, forest resource has been greatly reduced continuously. This leads to the emergence of sustainable development plan focusing on peoples participation. People are motivated to participate in sustainable management of community forest. So, there were many research publications on peoples participation in community forest management with various research results. The objectives of this research were to 1) analyze the research characteristics in order to study factors related to participation in community management, and 2) analyze the research characteristics related to quality level of the research. Meta-analysis method was used for synthesizing 35 theses conducting in graduate level as well as research reports of Royal Forest Department during 1993 2015. The data was analyzed by using descriptive statistics such as frequency distribution and percentages. Inferential statistics such as stepwise multiple regression analysis was used in the data analysis as well. The research findings revealed mostly research publications were published in 2000, 2002 and 2003 respectively. Kasetsart University was the leading institute that produced most research publications. The leading producer of research publications related to community forest management was the Department of Agricultural extension. It was found that there were 21 factors related to people participation that included being group members, having knowledge about community forest, obtaining information, attending the training, and utilizing forest products. Moreover, 6 research characteristics related to quality level of the research were found that included the consideration of benefits, the number of variables in research, the number of research hypotheses, the awareness of the importance of forest, research field and the concepts of public policy. The research findings were useful for designing further research on participation in community management by using lists of variables related to research quality and suitable variables related to peoples participation.