A study on the participation level of forest dwellers and its effective factors in forest management (case study: Babolkenar area of Babol Township)

The sustainable development of natural resources depends partially on identifying the role of local people’s participation in conservation, restoration and utilization of natural resources. This study aims at investigating of participation level of forest dwellers as well as the effective factors on their participation in forest management. Therefore, a number of 330 forest dweller households and 70 natural resources experts of natural resources headquarters of Mazandaran province in Babolkenar area of Babol Township were sampled for a survey research framework. It led to the selection of 178 households using Morgan table as well as 70 experts from natural resources headquarters via census. The required information was collected by means of questionnaires, which were validated using the executive and professional expertise. The reliability coefficients if 87 and 88 percent were determined by Cronbach’s alpha for forest dwellers and experts, respectively. Furthermore, forest management measures showed that the forest dwellers support conservation and utilization activities generally more than rehabilitation activities. In addition, a positive significant correlation was observed amongst the quality of the implemented management by forest dwellers and a set of factors including their education level, age, agricultural income, interaction with natural resources officers, participation in training courses and the level of awareness on forest benefits. As a conclusion, an improvement of awareness and knowledge of forest dwellers on forest management is suggested.