Impact of Participatory Forest Management on Livelihood and Forest Cover in Lembus Ecosystem, Baringo County, Kenya

Globally, forests provide critical ecosystem goods and services that directly support livelihood of millions of people. They also play a significant role to the expansion of many economies around the world. With a steady decline in global forests cover due to expansion of agricultural activities in 70% of countries around the globe, the United Nations General Assembly in 1989 convened strategic meeting to devise integrated approaches to halt and reverse the negative impacts of human activities on the physical environ-ment and promote environmentally sustainable development. This led to introduction of participatory forests management (PFM) approaches, which were later incorporated into the forests policies and laws in many countries around the world, including the Sub Saharan Africa. In Kenya, with a forest cover of 7%, PFM became a principal tool in improving forest cover, while enhancing people’s livelihood. However, recent reports indicate an escalation of poverty rate coupled with high degradation and deforestation of forest ecosystems. Whereas limited information existed on the impact of PFM on the livelihood as recognized by the International Union for Conservation of Nature, its contribution to the forest cover required further investigation. The study therefore addressed the existing gaps on the contribution of participatory forest management on the livelihood and forest tree cover. It adopted cross-sectional descriptive research design and application of GIS software. Purposive sampling was used and data analysed within a sample size of 384 persons derived from Fisher’s formula. Regression analysis was used with the results showing a positive impact (p-value