ASSESSING THE EFFECT OF ECOSYSTEMS RESTORATION ON COMMUNITY RESILIENCE TOWARDS CLIMATE CHANGES IN GISHWATI-MUKURA NATIONAL PARK, RWANDA

Abstract

This study entitled Assessing the Effect of Ecosystems Restoration on Community Resilience towards Climate Changes in Giswhati-Mukura National Park, Rwanda aimed at examining the relationship between Ecosystems Restoration on Community Resilience towards Climate Changes in Gishwati-mukura National Park, Rwanda. This research aimed to achieve the following specific objectives: To assess the perceptibility of ecological restoration in and around Gishwati-Mukura National Park and local community resilience towards climate change, To evaluate challenges affecting ecological restoration and community resilience to climate change around Gishwati-Mukura National Park., To determine the criteria upon which ecological restoration relied upon for improving local community resilience towards climate change, To evaluate local community resilience towards climate change indicators, To formulate suggestions based on the research findings. A cross-sectional research design involving both qualitative and quantitative methods was used to seize the importance of this research concern. Dawson (2002) defines a research design as a plan to be followed to answer the research objectives or framework to answer the specific problem. In this research, therefore, both qualitative and quantitative approaches will be used. Based on the conceptual framework, the researcher found a relationship between ecological restoration and community resilience of Gishwati-Mukura national Park. This sub-section describes the correlation between ecological restoration and community resilience of Gishwati-Mukura national Park, All responses related to the interview guide of the ecological restoration were summarized to generate a representative independent variable while all responses related to the community resilience to climate change of Gishwati-Mukura national Park were totaled to give the dependent variable. As the study is based on ordinal data, the Spearman correlation coefficient was used to generate a correlation between ecological restoration and community resilience of the Gishwati-Mukura Park community.