Local People’s Perception of a Mangrove Forest Plantation as a Carbon Sink, Chumphon Islands National Park, Thailand

Forest plantation, either on ground or on wetland as mangrove forest plantation, is commonly and continually practiced to maintain or increase the forest area, but mostly it is done by environmentalists from public, state enterprises, community, and/or private sectors.Others may receive direct and/or indirect benefits from the forest with more or less participation.This practical resarch article presents the mangrove forest plantation project at Chumphon Islands National Park, Chumphon province, in southern peninsular Thailand, of about 1,057 Rai (169.12 hectares) supported by the state enterprise Electricity Generating Authority of Thailand (EGAT).To investigate the results from this investment activity, this study examined the local people's perceptions of the benefits from mangrove plantation project at Chumphon Islands National Park, Chumphon province, in southern peninsular Thailand.The face-to-face questionnaires developed for secondary data were reviewed, then responses were stratified collected from 339 local respondents of 21 villages in six sub-districts within a five-kilometer radius around the project.The results indicate that more than half of the respondents were uncertain about some direct benefits, while two-thirds of them received indirect benefits.Consequently, if the mangrove plantation project is organized in the prohibited area of the national park, the local people's perceptions of the direct benefits are minimal.