Do the perceptions of community on forest management and conservation vary across wealth groups? The case of the Kilosa REDD+ initiative in Tanzania

Various community groups tend to interact with their environments differently. Understanding how these groups interact with their forests provides important insights for promoting sustainable forest governance. This study focused on understanding community across wealth groups (poor, medium, better-off) of their perceptions on forest management and conservation under the Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation plus (REDD+) initiative in Tanzania. Results showed that whereas community general awareness on forest management and conservation across wealth groups significantly varied, their perceptions on the extent of occurrences of several aspects/attributes of forest management and conservation were relatively symmetrical across all wealth groups. There was no significant difference in perceptions across the wealth group in the indicators of forest management and conservation. Community willingness to participate in forest management and conservation was also not significantly different across all wealth groups, with the exception of participation in training/workshop for which the difference was significant across wealth groups. Overall, community perceptions are of mixed results, however, they didn't vary much between wealth categories, either there was or wasn’t significant difference. The observed similarities and variations across wealth groups within the community are a key to inform future REDD+ actions. Thus, policies, plans and strategies related to REDD+ should consider these dynamics.