Thapa, Kamal, King, David, and Diedrich, Amy (2025) The influence of perceptions and demographic factors on local support for protected areas. Conservation Science and Practice, 7 (3). e70003.

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Abstract

Local support for protected areas (PAs) is necessary for their long-term success and is important for participatory conservation and sustainable management of PAs. However, the support for PAs depends on several factors such as perceived benefits and costs from PAs, and demographic factors. We carried out 845 household surveys in two PAs of Nepal in the Himalayas and in a lowland area (Terai). Overall, local people were supportive of PAs and had high conservation awareness. Decision-tree analyses revealed that perceptions of benefits strongly influenced the support for PAs. Among socio-demographic variables, spatial location, ethnicity, and education status influenced the support for PAs. We recommend focusing on mitigating or reducing costs that arise from the management of PAs while also providing benefits to local people. This should be prioritized for distant communities that provided the least support for PAs.

Item ID:	85047
Item Type:	Article (Research - C1)
ISSN:	2578-4854
Keywords:	attitude, buffer zone, decision-tree analysis, Himalayas, national park, Nepal, participatory conservation
Copyright Information:	© 2025 The Author(s). Conservation Science and Practice published by Wiley Periodicals LLC on behalf of Society for Conservation Biology. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Date Deposited:	03 Apr 2025 01:27
FoR Codes:	41 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES > 4104 Environmental management > 410404 Environmental management @ 100%
SEO Codes:	18 ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGEMENT > 1899 Other environmental management > 189999 Other environmental management not elsewhere classified @ 100%
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