Environmental Awareness and Community Attitude Towards Management of Forest Resources in Boki Local Government Area of Cross River State, Nigeria

Abstract

The experience of the researchers as environmentalists in the study area over the years, where they observed that the forest resources are gradually disappearing as a result of poor attitude of community members toward forest resources management. It is this poor attitude that necessitated this present study which sought to examined the influence of environmental awareness and community attitude toward management of forest resources in Boki Local Government Area of Cross River State, Nigeria. In order to achieve the aim of this study, one null hypothesis was used for the research work and a sample of six hundred and twenty respondents (620) were randomly selected for this research work. The selection was done through simple random sampling technique. The main instrument for data collection was the environmental awareness and community attitude questionnaire (EACAMFRQ)  developed by the researchers. The instruments were subjected to face validation by experts in measurement and evaluation. The reliability estimate of the instruments were established through split half reliability method. The reliability coefficient was corrected with Spearman Brown prophecy formular. The hypothesis was tested at .05 level of significance with 608 degree of freedom. The result of the  analysis revealed that there is a positive influence between environmental awareness and community attitude toward management of forest resources. Thus, the result of this research work recommended that environmental awareness is key to conservation of forest resources and should be repeatedly carried out in the study area to change the attitudes of community members toward environmental management.

Keywords: Environmental awareness, community attitude, forest resources.