Contribution of Mangrove Forest to the Livelihood of Local Communities in Ayeyarwaddy Region, Myanmar

Abstract

Myanmar’s forests are socially and economically significant to the country because over 70% of the country’s population depends on natural resources for daily needs. We conducted this study with the aim of assessing the extent to which direct and indirect (tangible) benefits of mangrove forest contribute to local livelihoods in the Ayeyarwaddy Region, Myanmar. We used a questionnaire survey (n = 185 households), interview and group discussion for data collection. The study shows that 43% of total household income is generated through selling of forest products collected from the mangrove forest such as firewood, fishes, crabs and prawn, whereas agricultural and non-farm incomes were found to be 25% and 32% of total income, respectively. The result prevails that income from the mangrove forest products for fish, crab, prawn and firewood is specifically 36%, 28%, 9% and 27%, respectively. Hence, we confirmed that local livelihood mainly depends on the mangrove forest ecosystem.