Chapters authored
Community Attachment and Environmental Stewardship: A Peri-Urban Perspective
This Chapter questions the negligence of attachment scholarship in the context of environmental stewardship with a specific focus in peri-urban areas. This Chapter has illuminated the imperatives of considering place attachement as an important factor in realizing environment stewardship in peri-urban areas. Three selected hamlets (Nzasa, Kisarawe and Pugu-Kibaoni) constitute the study area. A standard closed-ended questionnaire for assessing the extent of attachment of the community was deployed. Literature review on the other hand was used to map baseline information of the study area including the historical significance of the Pugu and Kazimzumbwi forest reserves. Three attachment attributes were explored;, community knowlegiability levels of the area; level of thoughts and feelings of the area; and the extent of community connection to natural resources in the area. It was revealed that the extent of community connection to the forest reserves are relatively strong. The study revealed considerable contrast on forest knowledgiability levels among men and women in the Pugu and Kazimzumbwi forest reserves. Males are generally revealed to be more knowledgiable of the Pugu and Kazimzumbwi forest reserves as compared to their female counterparts. The study revealed that there was substantial relationship between residence status and the level of thoughts and feelings on the forest reserves. The study has shown that natives have more thoughts and feelings of the present and the future of the forest reserves as compared to those who migrated from other parts of the country. The findings suggest that community attachment is of considerable importance in influencing environmental behavior either positively or negatively. Whilist the empirical evidence are drawn from the peri-urban areas of Pugu and Kazimzumbwi forest reserves of Dar es Salaam city, the message thereoff is representing a broad reality in the peri-urban areas of the Global South. The inclusion of community attachment perspective in negotiating environmental stewardship is advocated for as it might contribute in addressing the growing degradation of natural resources in peri-urban areas which has been increasingly declining.
Part of the book: Landscape Architecture Framed from an Environmental and Ecological Perspective