Impact of illegal mining activities on forest ecosystem services: local communities' attitudes and willingness to participate in restoration activities in Ghana.

Understanding local communities' willingness to participate in environmental restoration activities can help assess the level of volunteerism that can be expected for restoration projects. This study ascertained local communities' perception of the importance of non-market ecosystem services, the impact of illegal mining on ecosystem services, and their likeliness to participate in restoration of degraded lands resulting from illegal mining. Fifty respondents each were purposefully selected from three mining communities (Ntakam, Asawinso No.1 and Nkatieso) in a survey. Analysis of variance (ANOVA) tests results indicated there were no difference in views of respondents regarding the importance of forest for various non-market services. Illegal mining activities were identified as the cause of environmental problems such as water pollution, deforestation, poor soil fertility and limited access to land for agriculture productivity. Majority of respondents across the three communities indicated that forest is very important for non-market environmental services. Logistic regression results indicated that factors that affect likeliness to participate in restoration financing included income, embracing non-market ecosystem services as important, confidence in PES schemes and positive value motivation for restoration (altruistic, use and bequest values).

Value orientation and payment for ecosystem services: Perceived detrimental consequences lead to willingness-to-pay for ecosystem services.

This research analyzed whether the three distinct value orientations posited under the Value-Belief-Norm (VBN) model determine willingness-to-pay (WTP) for a payment for ecosystem services (PES) program. A survey instrument gathered U.S. residents' knowledge and attitudes toward ecosystem services and PES, and elicited WTP for the restoration of a hypothetical degraded forest watershed for improved ecosystem services. Data from over 1000 respondents nationwide were analyzed using exploratory factor analysis (EFA) and ordered logistic regression. Urban respondents were more familiar with the concepts of ecosystem service and PES than rural respondents but familiarity did not yield statistically different WTP estimates. Based on results from the EFA, we posit that latent value orientations might be distinguished as 'detrimental', 'biospheric' and 'beneficial (egoistic)' - as compared to 'altruistic', 'biospheric' and 'egoistic' as suggested in the VBN's general awareness of consequences scale. Awareness of biospheric and detrimental consequences along with ascriptions to personal norms had positive and significant effects on stated WTP. Beneficial (egoistic) value orientation was negatively associated with WTP and carried a negative average WTP per household per year (US$ -30.48) for the proposed PES restoration program as compared with biospheric (US$ 15.53) and detrimental (US$ 3.96) orientations. Besides personal norms, awareness of detrimental consequences to human wellbeing from environmental degradation seems the stronger driver of WTP for the restoration and protection of forest watershed ecosystem services under a PES program.