Understanding young people’s perception toward forestation as a strategy to mitigate climate change in a post-conflict developing country

Abstract

Understanding the perceptions of young people is a critical issue in the formulation and implementation of climate change mitigation strategies. Based on cognitive hierarchy theory, the present study aims to investigate the factors that motivate or hinder young people’s perception of forestation as a strategy to mitigate climate change in post-conflict Somalia. This study hypothesized a model in which climate change knowledge, risk perception and forest value orientations (anthropocentric/biocentric) influence attitude toward forestation and attitude, in turn, predicts behavioral intentions. We randomly surveyed students from three universities in three different regions of Somalia and collected 434 structured survey questionnaires. Using structural equation modeling, the results showed that climate change knowledge is a significant predictor of behavioral intention but not attitude toward forestation. The results also revealed that young people’s perception toward forestation as a strategy to mitigate climate change is significantly influenced by biocentric value orientation both directly and indirectly through attitude toward forestation. Contrary to previous studies, our results indicate that attitude partially mediates the relationship between biocentric value orientation and behavioral intentions and fully mediates the relationship between anthropocentric value orientation, risk perception and behavioral intentions, while it did not show any mediation results between climate change knowledge and behavioral intention. We found that the young people’s climate action or inaction is mainly shaped by climate change knowledge, biocentric value orientation, and attitude toward forestation. Finally, climate change mitigation efforts should avoid relying solely on attitude for behavioral decision-making formation and instead incorporate other factors into a more comprehensive framework