Farmers’ usage preferences for Rwanda’s Volcanoes National Park

Purpose - Policymakers and stakeholders lack empirical evidence on the effectiveness of community participatory management for agribusiness development and environmental conservation. The purpose of this paper is to assess the management preferences, approaches and practices of farm communities in Rwanda’s Volcanoes National Park (VNP). Design/methodology/approach - Primary data collected from 191 farmers were used. A choice experiment on current and potential park management practices and utilization levels was conducted along with a survey on socioeconomic, farm and institutional behavior characteristics. Findings - Results show that farmers prefer preserving VNP resources for the production of agribusiness crops that are low input and environmental friendly and provide high income to farmers in addition to handcraft production to enhance cultural, plant and wild animal tourism development. Farmers highly value integrated stakeholder participatory decision making about the parks natural resources. High-income farmers prefer to restore traditional cultural heritage park sites for recreation, and ancestral intellectual and cultural property rights. Research limitations/implications - The sample size limited the analysis to a conditional logit model. Originality/value - This is the first study to assess the management preferences of farm communities in the VNP area.