International Journal of Sustainable Development & World Ecology
Volume 23, Issue 3, 2016
http://www.tandfonline.com/toc/tsdw20/current

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Original Articles
Tourism effects on the environment and economic sustainability of sub-Saharan Africa
Jung Wan Lee & Tantatape Brahmasrene
pages 221-232
DOI:10.1080/13504509.2015.1114976
ABSTRACT
This paper integrates tourism, economic growth, and environmental issues in a multivariate format. Unlike recent research on this topic, a panel data of selected sample nations of sub-Saharan Africa is adopted by using cointegration and panel regression models. The current research discovers both long-run equilibrium and short-run dynamics between economic growth, tourism, energy use, and carbon emissions in sub-Saharan Africa. Furthermore, tourism and energy use show a highly significant direct impact on economic growth. In addition, tourism, energy use, and economic growth yield a highly significant positive effect on carbon emissions. Dissecting the region into oil producers and non-oil producers further suggests that the economic growth of sub-Saharan Africa has been accomplished by strong growth in tourism and energy use. However, there is highly significant evidence that in oil producing countries, CO2 emissions are directly affected by energy use and economic growth and not by tourism. For non-oil producing countries, tourism and energy use but not economic growth incur a highly significant positive impact on carbon emissions.

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Community participation in the management of forest reserves in the Northern Region of Ghana
Rikiatu Husseini, Stephen B. Kendie & Patrick Agbesinyale
pages 245-256
DOI:10.1080/13504509.2015.1112858
ABSTRACT
The 1994 forest and wildlife policy of Ghana provides the basis for community participation in forest management through participatory forest management. Even though forest reserves in the Northern Region are said to be managed collaboratively, fringe communities are supposedly involved only in maintenance activities of the reserve boundaries and seedling planting in plantation programmes. The forest reserves are said to be threatened by illegal activities from the fringe communities. This study therefore examined the nature of community participation in the management of forest reserves.
It is a mixed method research in which structured interview schedule, in-depth interview and focus group discussion guides were used for data collection. Respondents comprised community members, forestry staff and NGOs. Communities’ participation was found to be passive and tokenistic and limited to boundary cleaning and providing labour on plantations. There is no formal collaboration between communities and Forest Services Division. Prospects to communities’ participation lie in the continuous flow of benefits and their active involvement in management decisions. Active involvement of communities in all decision-making processes, capacity building of communities and forestry staff, incentive schemes and awareness creation are recommended for promoting community participation in managing forest reserves in Northern Region.