Determinants of households’ willingness to participate in the green legacy initiative program for tree planting in eastern Ethiopia

In Africa, the loss of annual rate of net forest increases the loss of biodiversity, climate change, soil degradation, soil infertility, food insecurity, and poverty. To reduce these challenges, the African government has started a large-scale tree-planting campaign, for instance, the Ethiopian government, led by Abiy Ahmed, initiated a nationwide tree planting effort in 2019 called the Green Legacy Initiative Program to combat climate change and land degradation. However, few studies consider farmers' potential willingness to pay (WTP) in GLI for tree planting and its post management practices. Hence, this study estimated farmers' potential WTP (in terms of labor) and factors that influence willingness to contribute labor in GLI program in East Hararghe zone, Oromia Region, Ethiopia. In this study, the primary data was collected from 408 household head randomly. Double bounded dichotomous choice elicitation format of contingent valuation method was employed. Bivariate probit model were used to analyze data. Approximately 78.9% of the farmers had willing to provide labor (1–30 man-days per year) and the mean of WTP was 14.86 man-days per year. The results of the econometric model revealed that the age of the household head, education level, family size, land size, livestock, non/off-farm, involvement in any natural resource management, perception of climate change, site distance, and the bid values significantly affect WTP for the GLI program. Hence, to implement the GLI program intervention effectively, the government bodies who are concerned for GLI should give attention on awareness creation and strategies that can ensure the success of the GLI program.