Restoration of Mangrove Forests by Planting Mangroves in Abandoned Shrimp Farms and Abandoned Salt Fields: Case Study of Muang District and Yaring District Pattani Province.

Abstract

This research consists purposes were 1. to find the driving factors promoting mangrove planting in private areas and 2. to investigate barrier factors affected to promote mangrove planting in private areas. This study was applied mixed methods techniques. The researcher applied questionnaire survey as tool to collect the data. Target groups of the study were consisted of official of government agencies, owner of abandoned shrimp farms and salt fields. The total number of participants was 38 persons. They were selected by purposive sampling. Descriptive Statistics were applied for quantitative data and content analysis was used for qualitative data. The research revealed that important factors affecting the planting of mangroves in private areas were, for example, 1) knowledge of official and capability to provide knowledge on mangrove planting (x̅= 4.10), 2) informing benefits of planting mangroves to the landlords (x̅ = 3.97) The barriers were as follows: 1) mistrusting with the government's laws (x̅= 4.47), 2) wanted to sell their lands (x̅ = 4.27).  Due to interviewing with key informants, the reasons to unwilling for planting mangroves were strongly desire to sale the lands. Moreover, the owners of abandoned areas scared that the government agencies will seize their lands and turn into public spaces.