Determining Factors of People's Participation in the Community Forest Program in the Central Dry Zone during the Rural Livelihood Transition in Myanmar

The Forest Department initially facilitated the Community Forest (CF) program. People participation is more critical, and local people ideally implement and manage the CF. In Myanmar, a stagnant CF user group is one of the issues in CF program success after three decades of CF implementation. In the recent decade, rural livelihood strategies have been changing alongside political and economic reform since 2011. This research aims to explore the determining factors of local people's participation in the CF program. First, this research used binary logistic regression to understand people's decision to be part of the CF program through the socioeconomic characteristics of households. Then, multiple linear regression model was used to examine CF members' participation in the CF user group's collective activities. The following 7 factors among 10 independent factors determine CF membership: gender, education, the nonfarm income (remittance, wage labor income, salary) of the household, customary forest area, agricultural land-holding size, family labor, and livestock-holding unit. Then, among CF members, the increasing nonfarm income of households and CF members working outside the township area negatively affects CF members' participation in the collective activities of the user group, whereas family labor availability promotes participation.