Participation of Rural Communities in Decision Making, Monitoring and Evaluation of the Oak Forest trees Dieback Management in the Kohgiluyeh and Boyer-Ahmad Province

Iran's Zagros forests have faced with the Dieback phenomenon in the recent decade. This crisis has become a major concern for stakeholders, including rural and nomadic communities. The success of dieback management involves the participation of these communities, who depends on the forests. This paper aims to investigate participation of rural communities in the decision making, developing, monitoring and evaluation of the oak forest trees dieback management projects. In this descriptive-explanatory study, the data were collected through structured interviews. A sample of 250 rural households living in the surrounding of the damaged forests in the Kohgiluyeh and Boyer-Ahmad province were randomly selected through a multi-stage sampling technique. The content validity of the questionnaire was assessed through a panel of experts and its reliability was confirmed using a pilot study and the Alpha Chronbach Test (0.662-0.981). A confirmatory factor analysis was utilized for analyzing construct validity. Most respondents had a poor participation in decision making, monitoring and evaluation in all the stages of dieback management activities. The participants were mostly in the position of the inactive information receivers or providers at the stage of diagnosing dieback and conserving the implemented projects. The participation was significantly and positively explained by variables such as the effect of dieback damage on rural household's livelihoods, forest area proportion infected with dieback, level of education, the financial abilities and knowledge to participate in the projects, interaction between rural households and external actors, participating in extension training courses, and financial support from external organizations to enhance participation.