Community Perception on the Environmental Conservation Approach Adopted by the Evangelical Lutheran Church in the Northern Diocese, Tanzania

Abstract

Faith-based institutions have the authority and ability to address several issues and be accepted and acted upon by people of different beliefs, especially by linking with the people’s respective faiths. This could be fully utilized in addressing environmental issues, which is one of the most debatable global concerns. Given the environmental degradation challenges facing Kilimanjaro region, the Northern Diocese of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Tanzania started an intervention on tree planting by involving youth enrolled in confirmation classes as a way of promoting environmental conservation behaviour among youths. Since the tree planting programme operates within the community, this study therefore was conducted to explore the way the community perceive this programme, which will determine their participation therein, and the success of the programme. A cross-sectional research design was adopted, and a random sample of 100 households that had registered their children for confirmation classes in different years from 2003 to 2015 was involved. A Structured questionnaire with a Likert scale was used to capture perceptions of households, complemented by Focus Group Discussions and Key Informant Interviews. The descriptive and content analysis was adopted. The findings revealed that about 85% of the households had a positive perception of the innovative approach adopted by the church. Furthermore, the community members see the programme as part of their household responsibilities and a good approach through which nature can regain its lost form and provide them with what had been lost. The findings confirm the argument under the
theory of self-determination of environmental behaviour, since, despite being the church intervention, people perform a tree planting
behaviour for their own sake and to gain positive results. In this case, youths got involved in the program so as to graduate from
confirmation training while avoiding the negative outcomes that is failure to be confirmed.