THE MODEL DEVELOPMENT OF THE COMMUNITY FOREST CONSERVATION IN THAILAND

Abstract

This study intended to identify the factors predicting the community forest conservation, and develop the model of the community forest conservation behaviors by determining the influence of the knowledge of community forest conservation (KOC) and the environmental education (EE) as the causal factors mediated by the inspiration of public mind (PB) affecting to the community forest conservation behaviors (CCB). The samples were 550 villagers living around community forests, selected by the random sampling technique. The research instrument was the five-rating scaled questionnaires. The data were analyzed by using the descriptive statistics and the factor analysis with the LISREL Mplus. The research findings showed that EE was a crucially critical factor influencing both PB and CCB at 0.61 and 0.59 respectively. Statistically, KOC, EE, and PB were coordinately able to predict CCB at 0.94, while KOC and EE were able to predict PB at 0.77.