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Article Title:
Assessing the Welfare value of Fuel Wood Commercialization among Rural Households in the Northern Region of Ghana: Application of Poisson Model
by Jamal Mohammed, Anthony Kofi Osei-Fosu and Hadrat Yusif

Abstract:
Many developing countries including Ghana has not given so much attention to issues of environmental and natural resources. This is often lacking in development and policy planning. The contribution of the natural resources to the Gross Domestic Product of some of these developing countries worth is not even accounted for. This study established fuel wood commercialization and households welfare by the individual travel cost method. The study focused on six districts in the Northern Region of Ghana based on poverty and rural dependence mode. The study used the purposive and the systematic random sampling along with a structured questionnaire to elicit information from the respondents. The results showed that a unit increase in travel costs to the forested site's led to reduced number of visits in search for fuel wood. The Poisson model analysis results revealed that there is a statistically significant negative relationship between the number of visits for fuel wood and travel costs. The study recommended that government, community organization and international organizations should facilitate the cultivation of forest sites solely for fuel wood harvesting to enhance environmental sustainability. In addition, appropriate harvesting techniques taught to households could facilitate conservation strategies.

Keywords: fuel wood; commercialization; households'; welfare; livelihood, poisson model, Ghana

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