Environmental Literacy and NGOs: Experience fromthe Microcredit Based Social Forestry Program

of Proshika in BangladeshM. Jahangir Alam Chowdhury

Presented ByLaila Yesmin

Student No.: MSS 141506

Masuma Sultana

Student No.: MSS 141525

Economics Discipline

Khulna University

Presented ToMohammed Ziaul Haider, Ph.D

ProfessorEconomics Discipline

Khulna UniversityKhulna

The rapid reduction in forest resources has posed a serious threat to the ecological balance of

Bangladesh. Currently, natural forest coverage is at 835,000 hectares which accounts for just 5.8

percent of the total land area of Bangladesh. At present the per capita forestland is less than 0.02

hectares. There is a positive correlation between poverty and deforestation. Poverty contributes

significantly to deforestation as poor households are dependent on local forests for their livelihood

and for fuelwood. It is against this backdrop that some non-government organizations (NGOs) in

Bangladesh have come forward to improve the environment while alleviating poverty through social

forestry programs. Some of these NGOs such as Proshika are using microcredit-small collateral-free

loans-to motivate poor households to participate in the social forestry program. Social forestry

consists of all programs and activities that involve the community in tree planting starting with tree

nursery establishment, tree planting on farms and other categories of land, caring for the trees, and

the management and utilization of timber and non timber forest products for a variety of goods and

services.

Introduction

Objective of the study

Using the stated objectives of Proshika in implementing social forestry programs as its backdrop,

this paper assesses

the impact on households' environmental literacy of participation in the microcredit-based social

forestry program of Proshika in Bangladesh.

Due to time and financial constraints, the paper looks at only the success of strip and block

plantation programs of Proshika in achieving its objectives. The study compares a group of

households that participate in the social forestry program (i.e., program group) with a group of

households that do not participate in the social forestry program (i.e., comparison group) in order to

assess the impact of social forestry participation on the environmental literacy of participating

households.

Key Words: Microcredit, Social Forestry, Environmental Literacy, Trees, Proshika, Bangladesh.

Proshika and the Social Forestry Program

Proshika is one of the four largest microfinance institutions in Bangladesh. It began operations

in 1976. It envisages a society that is economically productive and equitable, socially just,

environmentally sound, and genuinely democratic. The organization's mission is to conduct both

extensive and intensive as well as a participatory process of sustainable development through

empowerment of the poor. They divide forestry activities into two parts. The first part is the Forest

Management Program: it supports forest protection in degraded sal areas and promotes agro-forestry

and woodlots in forest areas. Second part is Social forestry program: it operates this program in 150

upazilla in 57 districts of Bangladesh. Under the social forestry program, Proshika promotes two

types of activities: (i) Strip and Block Plantations (ii) Institutional Plantations.

Under the strip and block plantation program, members of Proshika plant trees alongside roads,

railways, canals or privately owned land. Proshika carries out its institutional plantation program on

the campuses of educational institutions with the objective of creating a more pleasant environment

for teachers and students.

Proshika and the Social Forestry Program cont….

Table 1: Social Forestry Program of Proshika

Types of Plantation Period No. of SeedlingsPlanted

Area No. of Groups/Institutions Involved

Strip 1976 - 2002 7, 346, 269 14, 671 kilometres 6,729 GroupsBlock 1976 - 2002 48,915,016 17,731 hectares 8,981 GroupsInstitutional 1998 - 2002 472,378 - 552 Institutions

During the period from 1976 to 2002, Proshika completed 14,671 kilometres of strip

plantations with the involvement of 6,729 groups and planted 7.3 million trees (see Table 1). Under

the block plantation program, Proshika planted some 48.9 million trees on 17,731 hectares of land

during the period 1976 to 2002 (see Table 2). Proshika was able to involve 8,981 groups of their

members in this program. During the period 1998 to 2002, Proshika brought 562 institutions within

its coverage under the institutional plantation program. Proshika was able to plant 472,378 seedlings

at these institutions during the said period.

Environmental Literacy

Environmental literacy is based on an ecological paradigm which includes studies of

interrelationships between natural and social systems. environmental literacy is "awareness and

understanding of the importance of the natural environment and the effects of human activities on it,

as well as an appreciation for the complexity of the interaction. Environmental literacy as the

perception of people about their physical environment.

Ten environmental issues as a means of gauging their level of environmental

literacy. The ten environmental issues are: (i) I do not believe that human being are

polluting the environment; (ii) Dust, smoke from brick fields, and chemical wastage from

factories are polluting the environment; (iii) A portion of the pesticide and fertilizer that we

use for agricultural purposes remains in food and it is bad for health; (iv) Environmental

degradation, especially arsenic contamination, will create a shortage of drinking water in

the near future; (v) The incremental use of pesticide and fertilizer reduces product quality;

(vi) Environmental problems resulting from agricultural activities are exaggerated by the

media; (vii) The use of pesticide and fertilizer in agriculture is causing ground water

pollution; (viii) In spite of limitations, farmers can protect the environment; (ix) The use

of pesticide and fertilizer is not harmful to the environment; rather they promote high

quality production; (x) The governmental and non-governmental organizations will have

to become more active in protecting the environment.

The sampled households to give their opinion on a 5-point scale, ranging from "strongly

agree" to "strongly disagree. In the case of an affirmative statement, the highest 5 points to a

household whose response is "strongly agree" while the lowest 1 point to "strongly disagree". In

contrast, author award 5 points to "strongly disagree" and 1 point to "strongly agree" in the case

of a negative statement. The highest achievable environmental literacy score for a household is

50 while the lowest achievable environmental literacy score is 10.

Methodology

Study area: the author selected Gazipur district as study area.

Survey Design and Data: author collected the data through face-to-face interviews following a four-stage

sampling design. In the first stage study area selected and then selected a branch from the list of branches of

Proshika in Gazipur. A branch usually consists of some centers, with each center having 30 to 40 members.

At the third stage, author selected centers from the selected branch. At the fourth and final stage of sampling

individual households was selected.

The total number of participating households was 6200. Of these 6200 households, only 2100

households participated in social forestry projects. For the purposes of data collection, author divided

all the member households of the branch into three categories.

Table 2: Sample DistributionHousehold Groups Frequency Percent Cumulative PercentSFG 152 36.19 36.19CG1 174 41.43 77.62CG2 94 22.38 100.00Total 420 100.00  

SFG = Social Forestry Group; CG1 = Comparison Group 1, households (HHs) with Proshika membership more than 1 year belong to this group; CG2 = Comparison Group 2, new member households belong to this group.

The third category were not available so author replaced these households by households from the first and

second categories. Author dropped some observations due to inconsistent responses and missing data which left

420 households in the sample (see Table 2). In the final count, we had 152 households from the social forestry

group, 174 households from CG1, and 94 households from CG2.

Estimation Strategy

The multivariate analysis technique to assess the impact of participation in the social forestry

program of Proshika on outcome variables at the household level. The main advantage of this

technique, compared to the simple comparison method, is that it allows the study to control those

household and village level variables that influence the outcomes. A household's decision to attend a

microcredit-based social forestry program is likely to be related to the outcome of interest, which is

environmental literacy, in this paper. We estimate the following equation:

Υi = β Xi + γSFi + Ui…………………………(1)

where,

Y = The Environmental Literacy of Households,

X = A Vector of Some Control Variables that are Assumed to be Exogenous (for example, education

of the household head, the existence of electricity in the household, etc.),

SF = Social Forestry Participation

u = The Error Term.

Estimation Strategy Cont…..

The equation given below defines participation in social forestry:

SFi = δ' Zi + vi……………………………(2)

Where,

Z= some control variables

v = the error term of the model.

While we estimate the impact of social forestry participation using the equation (1), we

assume that the error terms of equations (1) and (2), i.e., u and v, are not correlated. But these two

error terms become correlated if the characteristics of households that influence the social forestry

program participation decision also determine the outcome variable, i.e., Y in equation (1).

The IV technique requires at least one variable that is likely to affect the decision to

participate in the social forestry program to be incorporated into the model that determines social

forestry program participation decision but is unlikely to affect directly the outcome of interest,

i.e., environmental literacy. Therefore rewriting the equation (2) under the instrumental variable

approach as follows:

S Fi = δ' Zi + λd + vi …………………………(3)

where d is the instrumental variable. In order to obtain consistent estimates, we assume that λ ≠0 and

that d is uncorrelated with u.

In addition to the IV technique, the author compared program households (which participate in

the microcredit-based social forestry program of Proshika) and comparison households (which are only

members of the microcredit program of Proshika but do not participate in the social forestry program)

in terms of the means and the distribution of the outcome variable, i.e., environmental literacy.

The differences in the means and the distribution of environmental literacy between program

and comparison households capture the impact of participation in the social forestry program of

Proshika on environmental literacy at the household level.

Estimation Strategy Cont…..

The first stage regression (equation 3) models the participation decision of households in

social forestry projects (SFORESTRY). In the second stage regression, we use the predicted value

(PSFORESTRY) of the participation of a household in a social forestry project from the first stage

regression as a regressor.

Results and Discussion

 Environmental Issues

Groups StronglyAgree

Agree Indifferent 

Disagree Stronglydisagree

ChiSquare

i SF 16.56 21.85 1.99 25.83 33.71 144.29*Non SF 36.02 9.96 39.85 9.58 4.60

ii SF 58.94 36.42 1.32 2.65 0.66 65.26*Non SF 25.29 42.91 1.15 11.88 18.77

iii SF 49.67 38.41 5.30 5.30 1.32 76.60*Non SF 16.86 33.72 16.48 13.41 19.54

iv SF 56.95 32.45 4.64 4.64 1.32 56.39*Non SF 29.12 28.35 5.75 16.86 19.92

v SF 44.37 33.77 6.62 11.92 3.31 56.93*Non SF 19.16 24.90 20.69 14.56 20.69

vi SF 11.26 15.89 25.17 14.57 33.11 94.17*Non SF 32.18 35.25 18.77 10.73 3.07

vii SF 52.32 35.76 5.30 3.97 2.65 78.86*Non SF 16.48 36.40 9.58 17.24 20.31

viii SF 48.34 29.14 12.58 7.95 1.99 68.14*Non SF 15.71 29.89 16.86 16.09 21.46

ix SF 9.27 24.50 12.58 18.54 35.10 76.55*Non SF 28.35 38.31 15.33 12.64 5.36

X SF 68.21 27.81 0.00 3.31 0.66 67.54*Non SF 37.55 22.22 8.43 14.56 17.24

Table 3: Distribution of the Responses of Households on Environmental Issues (%)

Table 3 presents the distribution of the responses of households on the ten environmental issues.

It shows that a higher number of social forestry (SF) households give environmentally logical

responses compared to non-social forestry (CG) households. The chi-square test results indicate

that the distribution of the responses of SF households is significantly different from that of

nonsocial forestry households. These results indicate that, on the whole, participation in the SF

program enhances the environmental knowledge of households and enables households to give

more environmentally logical responses to the questions related to environment.

Results and Discussion

SFG = Social Forestry Group; CG1 = Comparison Group 1, households (HHs) with Proshika membership more than 1 year belong to this group; CG2 = Comparison Group 2, new member households belong to this group.

ClassificationCriteria

Household Groups No. of Obs . Mean Std. Dev t-test

T Pr(|T|> |t|)

SF participation CG1 173 27.77 6.85 11.72 0.0000

SFG 150 35.70 5.01

SF participation CG2 87 31.94 3.37 6.23 0.0000

SFG 150 35.70 5.01

SF participation CG1 & CG2 260 29.17 6.22 10.96 0.0000

SFG 150 35.70 5.01

HH head’s sex Female 23 32.78 7.49 0.91 0.3630

Male 387 31.48 6.55

HH head’s literacy Literate 230 32.49 6.31 3.28 0.0011

Illiterate 180 30.36 6.79

HH’s religion Hindu 15 35.38 8.41 2.30 0.0222

Muslim 395 31.41 6.50

HH’s access toelectricity

Without Electricity 69 29.72 6.09 2.54 0.0113

With Electricity 341 31.92 6.65

Table 4 Environnemental Literacy Score.

Table indicates that the average literacy scores of non-social forestry household groups are 28 and 32 for

CG1 and CG2 respectively. On the other hand, the average literacy score of the social forestry household

group (SF households) is 36. On average, the SF households have a 29% higher environmental literacy score

compared to the CG1 households and a 12% higher score compared to theCG2 households. The t-test results

indicate that SF households, on average, have a significantly higher environmental literacy score compared to

the two non-social forestry household groups (CG1 and CG2).

Variable Definition Mean Standard DeviationSFORESTRY Dummy for the Social Forestry (SF) Participation, 1 if the household participates in the SF

project, 0 otherwise0.36 -

ENVSCORE Total household environmental score 30.29 6.29SFDISTANCE Distance to the nearest social forestry project (kilometres) from the house 1.28 0.96MUSLIM Dummy for the religion of the household, 1 if the household is

Muslim, 0 if the household is Hindu0.96  

MARKET Distance of the household from the nearest market (kilometres) 0.65 0.59SCHOOL Distance of the household from the primary school (kilometres) 0.48 0.41ELECTRICITY Dummy for the availability of electricity in the village; 1 if the village has electricity, 0 otherwise 0.83 -EDUHEAD Total years of schooling of the household head 3.75 4.19AGE Age of the household head (in months) 543.08 150.55MALE Dummy for the sex of the household head; 1 if head is a male, 0 otherwise 0.95 0.23

MALE6B Total male household members in the age category of 6 below 0.17 0.42FEMALE6B Total female household members in the age category of 6 below 0.14 0.38MALE625 Total household male members in the age category of 6 to 25 1.07 0.95FEMALE625 Total household female members in the age category of 6 to 25 1.02 0.95

MALE60A Total household male members in the age category of 60 above 0.06 0.24FEMALE60A Total household female members in the age category of 60 above 0.01 0.11MALE2660 Total household male members in the age category of 26 to 60 1.02FEMALE2660 Total household female members in the age category of 26 to 60SERVICE Dummy for the employment of the household head - service, 1 if head is a service holder, 0

otherwise0.12 -

EDUALL Total years of schooling of all household members except the household head 14.13 11.74LABOUR Dummy for the employment of the household head - daily labour, 1 if head is a daily labourer, 0

otherwise0.14 -

MCDUR Duration of membership in the social forestry program (in months) 3.98 6.22

Table 5: Variables Definition and Descriptive Statistics

Results and Discussion cont…

Table 5 shows the environmental literacy score of households by sex of the household head.

Female-headed households have an average environmental literacy score of 33 while the score

of male households is 32. But the difference between female-headed households and male-headed

households in terms of environmental literacy is not statistically significant. This result

indicates that female-headed households are likely to have a slightly better knowledge about

their surrounding environment compared to male-headed households.

Variables coefficient SE dy/dx

SFDISTANCE -1.913*** (0.170) -0.507

MUSLIM -1.084** (0.544) -0.383

MARKET 0.0514 (0.187) 0.014

SCHOOL -0.451 (0.281) -0.120

ELECTRICITY -0.443* (0.257) -0.132

AGE 0.00145* (0.0008) 0.0004

MALE -0.236 (0.519) -0.068

EDUHEAD 0.00833 (0.0292) 0.002

LABOUR 0.404 (0.379) 0.120

BUSINESS 0.0136 (0.324) 0.004

AGRI 0.358 (0.313) 0.099

SERVICE -0.0943 (0.403) -0.024

EDUALL -0.0229* (0.014) -0.006

Table 6: Determinants of Household Participation in Social Forestry Projects (Probit)

Results and Discussion cont…

Table 6: Determinants of Household Participation in Social Forestry Projects (Probit)

Variables coefficient SE dy/dx

MALE6B -0.136 (0.229) -0.036

FEMALE6B -0.00606 (0.258) -0.002

MALE625 0.0316 (0.122) 0.008

FEMALE625 0.369*** (0.126) 0.098

MALE2660 0.0616 (0.162) 0.016

FEMALE2660 0.187 (0.202) 0.050

MALE60A 0.323 (0.439) 0.086

FEMALE60A 0.362 (0.909) 0.110

MCDUR 0.00491*** (0.001) 0.001

Constant 1.459* (0.886)

Log likelihood 322.04

Pseudo R2 0.5936

Obs 412

We expect education to have a positive impact on environmental literacy as education helps

individuals to learn more about the environment. Table 6 illustrates the environmental literacy score

of households by the literacy status of the household head. The results indicate that households with

Results and Discussion cont…

literate heads have a 2 points higher environmental literacy score on average than households with

illiterate heads. The average environmental literacy score of households with literate household heads

is 33 while the same score for households with illiterate heads is 31. The t-test result indicates that

households with literate heads have a significantly higher environmental literacy score compared to

households with illiterate household heads. These results show education to have a positive impact on

the environmental literacy of households.

The results on Table 6 show that the instrumental variable SFDISTANCE negatively determines

the decision of a household to participate in a social forestry project. This result indicates that an

increase in the distance of a household from the nearest social forestry project reduces the probability

of that household joining a social forestry project. The coefficient of the instrumental variable is

statistically significant and the F statistics (F statistics = 235.45) indicate that it is significantly different

from zero (λ≠0). These results indicate that the probability of joining a social forestry project by a

household reduces by 51% if the distance of that household from the nearest social forestry project

goes up by 1 kilometer. This result demonstrates that the ability of the instrument to predict the

participation of households in social forestry projects is quite good.

Conclusions and Policy Implications

The rapid reduction in forest resources has created serious ecological threats in Bangladesh. The

per capita forestland has come down to less than 0.02 hectares from 0.035 hectares per person in 1968-

69. Taking into consideration the massive deforestation in Bangladesh as well as the negative

consequences of climate change, it is important for policy makers and non-government organizations

(NGOs) to undertake projects that motivate people to plant more trees and to conserve existing forest

land.

The main goal is to encourage poor people to plant trees for their own benefit. Besides

encouraging participating households to join tree planting projects, Proshika provides training to these

households about the environment and the importance of planting trees for the purpose of deriving both

economic and environmental benefits. The results indicate that participation in the social forestry

program of Proshika significantly enhances the environmental literacy of participating households.

These findings demonstrate the importance of policy makers and NGOs initiating more environment-

related projects like social forestry to make people more literate about the environment. Besides

initiating such projects, the government must take steps to increase the access of people to education

and to the media, such as radio and TV, as these appear to be significant positive determinants of the

environmental literacy of households.

Thanks to All