Payment for Watershed Services in the Mara River Basin: Part II: An Analysis of Stakeholders’ Perceptions and Willingness to Implement Conservation Practices

Abstract

Understanding the landowners’ willingness and attitude toward best management practices is a key step toward implementing payment for watershed services (PWS) schemes. This chapter presents the results of a field research that was conducted in the Mara River basin (MRB) focusing on the demographic, economic, and environmental factors that might influence farmers’ willingness to implement water conservation practices. The influencing factors were assessed by applying descriptive statistics and a logit regression model. The data were collected via a household survey of more than 700 farming families in the basin. The results indicated high levels of farmers’ willingness to implement water conservation practices except for cutting down on water extraction. Cost compensation would be necessary to promote implementation of such practice. The farm size consistently had a positive effect on conservation practice implementation. We recommend that the PWS managers in the MRB target larger farmers first in implementing the schemes and fully compensate small farmers for the same. In general, farmers in Tanzania had a slightly higher degree of willingness to implement water conservation practices on public lands. This higher level of participation could be directly attributed to the nature of agriculture, water uses, and public landownership. Animal husbandry is a more prominent activity in Tanzania, and, therefore, its farmers appear to depend on rivers and streams for their animals more frequently than other countries.This usage motivates them to participate in public land conservation measures, an encouraging motive that the PWS agencies may want to consider while planning.