Amid the epoch of global overpopulation, the agroforestry system can intervene as a novel practice that can safeguard agricultural sustainability, provide a means of livelihood, yield ecological benefits, and contribute to household food security. However, the adoption of sustained agroforestry practices requires an understanding of both farmers’ personal characteristics and perceived statuses, constituting a difficult task to anticipate, analyze, and visualize. To this end, it is crucial to understand and identify the most significant factors driving the adoption of agroforestry. This research attempts to examine the determinants and psychological drivers of smallholder farmers’ intention to plant trees on farmland and the factors that may discourage them from doing so. The conceptual framework of the study was developed based on the theory of planned behavior. We draw on survey data from 400 smallholder farmers in a northern irrigated plain of Pakistan. A binary logistic regression model was employed to explore how socio-psychological drivers influence farmers’ decision to adopt agroforestry practices. The study results reveal that 60.5% of the respondents prefer to adopt agroforestry practices. The results from a logit estimation showed that socio-economic variables such as family size, land ownership, subsidies, livestock rearing, sources of energy, and total income had a significant positive influence on the planting of trees on farmland, while age had a negative influence. Moreover, runoff control and the control of heat significantly affect the perceptions of farmers regarding the adoption of agroforestry. The findings suggest that implementing policies that enhance the delivery of robust agricultural extension services and training programs for farmers could disseminate the agroforestry system countrywide, which might offer substantial benefits for farmers in the long term while maintaining environmental integrity.

The concept of sustainable livelihood garnered a prominent status in humanitarian and international development organizations that aim to calculate and build a livelihood for agroforestry farmers. However, it is difficult to measure and analyze as well as visualize the data of livelihood improvement from agroforestry (AF). This paper comparatively assessed 400 smallholder farmers’ livelihood through AF and conventional farming (CF) systems in the Northern Irrigated Plain of Pakistan. The findings showed that AF has a mixed impact on farmers’ livelihood capital, including human, physical, natural, financial and social capital. Specifically, AF significantly improved financial capital in terms of timber, non-timber and fuel wood income. Furthermore, the physical capital (buffalo plough, generators and sprinklers), natural capital (the extent of cultivated land and land ownership; the number of households (HHs) growing vegetables, fruit crops and medicinal crops) and social capital (the number of social groups that HHs involved and number of HHs sharing crop seeds) of AF farmer HHs were significantly improved compared to those of CF farmers. However, the results show that financial capital gain through crop income, HHs owning high-value vehicles (tractors) and farmers trust and collective activities were significantly higher in CF farmers than AF ones. Therefore, to enhance the contribution of AF to rural livelihood, advanced extension services and government involvement on research planning and implementing are needed.

The contribution of local communities has become widely recognized as a better alternative in forest management than the traditional command-based control approach. However, several years later of implementation, most programs were failed due to a lack of community participation, imposing an uncertain future for community forestry. This paper examines rural Sri Lankans’ participation intention in community forestry (CF) program by using the Probit regression model. Randomly selected 300 individuals representing both CF members and non-CF members were interviewed for the study. The study results indicate that rural residents’ intention in future CF program negatively correlated with the participation status (CF membership) of individuals. Accordingly, CF members show less participation intention in future CF program than non-CF members. Socio-economic variables such as education level (p < 0.01) and the occupation of head of the household (p < 0.05) and total household income (p < 0.01) have significant influences on individuals’ participation intention in CF. In addition, non-monetary benefits derived from CF and perception on the product regulation and conflict mitigation are also appeared to significantly and positively affect villagers’ intention. The findings also revealed the knowledge gap on the purpose of the CF program and CF policy design. Hence, require immediate attention to improve awareness. Moreover, failure to raise local people’s participation intention in CF may indicate inadequate or ineffective government policies. Therefore, the Department of Forest Conservation should take sound measures to ensure that community-based forest management policies are consistently implemented at different administrative levels across the country and its rightness should be evaluated strictly.

Forest ecosystems provide myriad services that are beneficial to local livelihoods. Successful community forest management (CFM) enhances the provision, overall benefit, and effectiveness of the regulation of ecosystem services and contributes to forest conservation efforts. The study area was a deciduous forest in the Ban Mae Chiang Rai Lum Community Forest, which is located in Pa Mae Phrik National Forest Reserve in Thailand’s northern province of Lampang. A systematic sampling of the forest area was conducted, and survey plots were established. A field survey documented 197 plant species from 62 families. A questionnaire that focused on CFM engagement behavior and ecosystem service satisfaction levels was used to interview household representatives. The study found that levels of engagement and the effectiveness of forest management were directly related; increased CFM effectiveness leads to improved ecosystem services. Participation in CFM can improve ecosystem services and enhance livelihoods. Specifically, participation in decision making, forest fire management, check dam construction, benefit sharing, and in forming effective forest regulations positively impacted ecosystem services. In contrast, employing forest patrols adversely affected those services. This knowledge is useful for identifying policies and practices that can maximize ecosystem services to enhance livelihoods and safeguard the forest’s vitality.

The community forestry (CF) program in Sri Lanka came forth in the early 1980 s following a global trend to conserve forest resources and provide benefits to the local community. However, very little is known about the role of CF on livelihoods in Sri Lanka. Therefore, this study evaluated the effect of the newly implemented CF program on community livelihoods in the intermediate zone of Sri Lanka by using a before-after control impact (BACI) design. Data were collected from 450 households and analyzed using the difference-indifference (DID) method. The results show that the CF program has improved livelihoods, with a significant (p < .001) positive effect on household conditions, income from livestock and non-timber forest products, savings, loans, state landholdings, informal education, trust, and collective aid actions. However, the increase in the number of CF members and the increase of demand for state land may threaten the future sustainability of the CF program. Despite, the CF program demonstrating very promising results in terms of livelihood improvement, more efforts are still needed to encourage alternative income sources to enable future generations to be less dependent on the forest.