Assessing well-being in forest dependent communities: A case study of Gunung Tebu Forest Reserve, Terengganu

. Forest ecosystem services provide wide range of benefits not only to the environment and economy but also to the social aspect. For generations local communities had received benefits from forest ecosystem services to sustain their livelihood, where over 2.4 billion people all over the world still depend on forest ecosystem for food, source of raw water, medicines and also income generation. Which made the forest become fundamental to the livelihoods and well-being of the people, especially for those who live within and adjacent of forest boundaries. These people are called “forest - dependent communities”. A case study in 2022 was conducted to assess the well-being of forest dependent communities specifically at Gunung Tebu Forest Reserve, Terengganu. The study employed few data collections (including rapid rural appraisal, focus group discussion and household survey) among peripheral communities from seven (7) villages. The primary data for social survey were collected from 700 households by using structured questionnaire. The results show the respondents’ average income was RM2,920/month with 10.6% of forest dependency. Other than that, the poverty level of these communities may increase up to 20%, if the income from the forest is eliminated. Therefore, the exploration and implementation of alternative forest management such as social forestry practices are important to ensure the needs for conservation and development is balanced especially at Gunung Tebu, Terengganu.


Introduction
Forest ecosystem goods and services had benefited the local communities especially people who live within forest boundaries, and also for those living in the surrounding forest areas.Besides meeting livelihood needs, the goods and services provided by the forest such as provisioning (water and food) and cultural services (recreation and ecotourism ) contributed to these communities through income generated by the households.

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There are four (4) main category of forest goods and services that benefited local communities are non-timber forest products, employment opportunities, recreation/ecotourism and forest ecosystem services.The NTFPs defined as all biological materials, other than timber, which are extracted from forest for human use [1].In traditional forest communities, many NTFPs may be used for subsistence while others are the only source of income.Some NTFPs have significant medicinal value and contribute to the community's health and well-being [2].In Peninsular Malaysia, there are still communities rely on NTFPs for their livelihood especially bamboo, wild fruits like petai and jering, tualang honey and medicinal plants such as Tongkat Ali, Kacip Fatimah and etc.Other that NTFPs, forest also creates employment opportunities through ecotourism and recreation, especially to communities live near Eco-park or known as "Taman Eko-Rimba".Communities not only become workers at private resort/chalets but also operated their own homestay and local business such as souvenir shop, cafes and outdoor activities operator like bicycle, ATV and jungle-trekking.Some of the communities also become logger's workers in forest concession areas as "kepala hutan", "kelindan" and etc.Besides that, forest also provides fresh water especially for household uses and agricultural purposes.This services known as " air masyarakat".This "air masyarakat" was monitored by State Health Department to ensure the fresh water safe to be consumed by locals and some of the areas were given permitted by State Forestry Department.
All four categories of forest goods and services are public goods, and some of them are not traded in the market place, but crucially benefited to the livelihoods of local communities.The benefits can be clearly seen through households' income and employment, which contribute to the social and cultural development [3].A socioeconomics study has been carried out in 2022 to assess the well-being of local communities by quantify the dependency towards forest resources and the effect to income of these communities by using Gunung Tebu Forest Reserve, Terengganu as a study case.

Study area
Gunung Tebu Forest Reserve (FR) was gazetted as Permanent Forest Reserved on May 1950 with an area of 25,259 hectares under jurisdiction of North Terengganu Forest District Office, Terengganu State Forestry Department.Gunung Tebu has an elevation of 1,039 meter a.s.l and the 8th highest peak at Terengganu which attract hikers from all over the Malaysia.This FR located at Besut, Terengganu only 24km from Jertih and 118km from Kuala Terengganu.This FR rich in biodiversity and the forest composition were hill dipterocarp and montane forest.Gunung Tebu also function as watershed area as this FR become the main source of water for Paya Peda Dam which built for irrigation of paddy plantation at Besut.Gunung Tebu FR consists of two main ecotourism and recreational attractions which are Gunung Tebu and Lata Belatan Eco-Park that attracted not only domestic but also foreign visitors.Due to this, it has created job and employment opportunities, hence generate income of local communities live at peripheral of the FR.

Study approach
Collection of data in this study involves two main types of data which are primary and secondary data.Details of each type of data as below: i.Primary -include rapid rural appraisal, focus group discussion and survey.ii.
Secondary -collected through printed and existing materials such as reports and journals.

Rapid rural appraisal
Rapid rural appraisal is a technique that allows an assessment of the surrounding and the impacts of the forest goods and services to the socioeconomics communities [5].There are few approaches in this technique which are group interview; cross-checking information; obtaining quick quantitative data, observation and collection of secondary data [6].Rapid rural appraisal also is an important tool as it provides baseline information that required in designing questionnaire.For the purpose of this study, rapid rural appraisal was conducted preliminary to get the idea and understand the dependency of local communities towards forest goods and services.RRA technique applied were discussion among local communities, site visit and collection of existing data.

Focus group discussion
Discussion of focus group is structured into a discussion in a small group consisting of several individuals, such as Head of Village (Pengerusi Jawatankuasa Pembangunan Kemajuan Kampung, JPKK) and community representatives live adjacent of Gunung Tebu Forest Reserve.In this study, discussion was held to justify and educate communities about the study and get feedback and respond from respondents/households.
The focus group discussion is important as the findings will be used to address the issues and construct the questionnaire.

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As a guide to get an idea of the current socioeconomic level as well as community awareness about activities related to ecotourism and conservation of the study area

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Using language that is simple and commonly used by respondents -introduced by members of the group (respondents) involved to facilitate understanding of the questionnaire.
• Focus groups in the evaluation scenario try to reveal objections, misunderstandings and possible strategic responses that the respondents may make to the information questioned.

Sampling method
In this study, respondents were chosen using random sampling, where the villages selected from the radius of 5 kilometers from the Gunung Tebu FR boundary (Figure 1).The determination of sample size adopted the simplified sampling formula by Yamane with 5% of precision level [7].This study managed to interview 700 households during the survey.

Findings & Discussions
In 2022, a household survey was conducted among the communities surrounding the Gunung Tebu FR, Besut, Terengganu.The survey successfully interviewed 700 households from seven (7) villages and information of the villages involved as in Table 1.

Household's demographic characteristics
A total of 700 heads of household were interviewed with a total of 3,196 households and an average of 4 to 5 household members per household.Basic household's demographic information as Table 2.

Households' income sources
Income generated from Gunung Tebu FR goods and services show its ability to generate income either in form of cash or income in-kind.Cash income refers to income generate direct from the forest products.Meanwhile, in-kind income refers to forest goods that consumed and utilized by households.Result shows Kampung Tok Dor has higher in-kind income compared to the other six ( 6) villages (Table 3) with the percentage of 15.5%.Result also found that the average monthly household income ranged from RM2, 414 (Kampung Tok Dor) to RM3, 357 (FELDA Sela sih) with the average mean income of RM2, 920 per month.The average household income was lower than the median income of Rural Terengganu (RM4, 790).

Impact of forest ecosystem
Impact of forest ecosystem goods and services towards socio-economic and well-being of communities can be clearly seen through the household's income from forest goods and services such as non-timber forest products, employment, recreation and ecotourism activities and other ecosystem services.Figure 2 shows the summary of forest dependency towards forest resources and its related activities by local communities.While, Table 4 shows numbers of households involved in forest goods and services.The finding also showed the households' income generated from forest ecosystem goods and services was RM271/month (Table 5).Other than that, the dependency on forest goods and services as a source of income was 10.6% from the total income.

Level of poverty
The level of poverty for these communities assessed from the poverty incidence in the study area.In Malaysia, the poverty line income (PLI) is used as a basis to determine the poverty, where it is calculated based on minimum expenditure level.In 2022, Malaysia's household PLI was calculated to be RM2, 208/ month for 4.7 members per household.The result shows the poverty level at Gunung Tebu FR area was 34.7%.In the absence income generate from forest ecosystem goods and services, the poverty level for seven (7) villages surrounding Gunung Tebu FR will increase up to 20% from current state (Table 6).The result proved that Gunung Tebu FR contributes significantly to income generation from the Gunung Tebu FR, hence, affecting the well-being of local communities live adjacent of the forest reserved.

Fig 2 .
Fig 2. Categories of forest dependency by local communities

Table 1 .
Summary of villages involved in the study

Table 3 .
Information of surveyed communities

Table 4 .
Information of surveyed communities

Table 5 .
Income from forest ecosystem

Table 6 .
The poverty levelAs conclusion, the exploration and incorporating communities as the alternative forest management such as social forestry practices are important to en sure the needs for conservation, economic and social development is balanced especially at Gunung Tebu FR.It is not easy nor impossible to improve the livelihood of local communities while protecting forest ecosystem.There are several ways of incorporating conservation and socioeconomic goals, such as the development communities based ecotourism (CBET) as new strategy in managing forest reserved sustainably.Thanks to Ministry of Natural Resources, Environment and Climate Change (NRECC), Forest Research Institute Malaysia (FRIM) and Forest Department of Peninsular Malaysia (FDPM).