Recognition of effective institutional criteria on sustainable management of Zagros forests, West Azerbaijan Province, Iran

The study aims to identify and assessment appropriate criteria for sustainable management and their prioritization in the Zagros forests of West Azerbaijan province. In this regard, First, by collecting and reviewing the views of all those involved in forest management using non-inferential sampling method and using a questionnaire, the criteria of the study area were determined. The statistical population related to the determination of criteria was about 68 people. Then, selected criteria has been of based on the organizational approach, were evaluated according to the opinions and approvals of experts (about 35 people) in the four fields management, overhead institutions, social and laws and political. Evaluation was performed based on SWOT analysis approach to determine the internal factors (strengths and weaknesses) and external factors (opportunities and threats) selection criteria in each four areas, and prioritization of the criteria using pairwise comparison analysis and Super Decisions. Based on the results of SWOT analysis from a total of 91 selected criteria, for the management area of 35 criteria, the overhead institutions area of 21 criteria, the social area of 11 criteria and the laws and policies area of 24 criteria were accepted. Prioritization results showed that in the management area criteria of "top-down decision making" with a weight of 0.96, in the area of overhead institutions, the criteria “dependent and subsistence of the forestry organization in the Ministry of Agriculture" with a weight of 0.158, in the social area the criteria of "undeveloped social, economic and cultural attributes of the region" with a weight of 0.199 and in the laws and policies area, the criterion "lack of land use and of talent selection systems" with a weight of 0.114 was more important.