Environmental Education and Public Mind Affecting Forest Conservation Behavior

Abstract

This research was a quantitative research with the survey method. Data collection was conducted with the sample group of 390 local people who live in Khampom Sub-district, Wapeeprartoom District and Mahasarakham Province in the Northeastern region of Thailand. A questionnaire was used as the instrument for data collection. The objectives were to study the environmental education level, public mind for forest conservation level, and forest conservation behavior level and to study the independent variables of environmental education in terms of environmental knowledge, environmental awareness, environmental attitude, environmental participation, and public mind for forest conservation level affecting the dependent variable of local people conservation behavior. In data analysis, Multiple Regression Analysis was used for predicting the relationship between independent variables and dependent variable. The findings illustrated that environmental education, public mind for forest conservation and forest conservation behavior of local people were at high levels. Moreover, independent variables comprising of environmental knowledge,environmental awareness, environmental attitude and environmental participation, and public mind for forest conservation affected the dependent variable forest conservation behavior of local people with 78.70 percent of power prediction (Adjusted R² = 0.784) with statistically significant at level of 0.01.