Culture, Communication and Conflict in Conservation Campaigns in Participatory Forest Management in Kenya

Abstract

Global forest governance is at a watershed moment. This is a crucial time to analyse existing systems to contribute to the development of ‘new’ methods, perhaps related with this timeline, of forest management. This research contributes to discourse on re-evaluating within the context of forest communication conservation campaigns, taking a case study of Arabuko Sokoke Forest (ASF). This is where Participatory Forest Management (PFM), was first piloted in Kenya. This study uses a culture-centred approach (CCA) to analyse perhaps a collision of cultures in ASF and tries to understand why PFM has not achieved its communication conservation campaigns potential in ASF as compared to other forests in Kenya. The findings reveal perhaps unacknowledged conflict and a lack of shared meanings between forest conservation campaign strategists and Adjacent Forest Dwellers (AFDs), at ASF. This research contributes to praxis, where, sustainable forest governance, perhaps is a governance issue in Kenya. Contributing to Sustainable Development Goals (SDG, 13, 14 & 15), Theoretically ‘advancing’, contradistinction studies of communication studies and forest resources management.