Place attachment, community attachment, and local peoples support for peat land REDD+ project in Indonesia

Abstract

Understanding local peoples attitude toward development of REDD+ project is important because the goal of REDD+ cannot be achieved without supports and participation of local people. This study was conducted for a peat land REDD+ project in Sumatra, Indonesia, to test relations among place attachment, community attachment and local peoples attitude to support a REDD+ project. Two hundred seventy five sets of data was collected from households around project area through household survey, and used for the analysis. Structural equation analysis was carried out to test a model with the variables. Moderating effect of forest-income dependence was also analyzed by dividing households into two groups, whether they get income from REDD+ project area, or not. Being mostly indigenous people, the respondents showed consistent community attachment and place attachment on project area. In the model, both place attachment and community attachment were statistically significantly related, but only place attachment showed influence on local peoples attitude to support the project. The moderating effect of forest-income dependence was not significant. However, it was found that forest-income gaining group has more experiences of compensations, provided by project, than the other group. It is concluded that place attachment has a significant relationship with, and can be a predictor of, local peoples attitude to support REDD+ project, if local people feel attachment on their community, and are compensated for project disadvantages. To motivate and keep local people to support REDD+ projects, it is important to well define and inform disadvantages of and compensation by the projects to local communities.