Investigating the Economic and Social Consequences of the Forest Logging Prohibition of Eastern Forests of Mazandaran Province

Forest logging prohibition is one of the most important challenges in the management of Hyrcanian forests that it has diffrent consequences. The purpose of this study is identifing, weighting and prioritizetion the positive and negative consequences of the forest logging prohibition from economic and social aspects in forests in the east of Mazandaran province (forests managed of the department of natural resources and watershed of Mazandaran province (Sari). The statistical population of the study consists of a group of 60 people including experts and specialists, faculty members specialized in this field and rural communities living in the margins of managed forests. In the study we used the Delphi method for identifing the consequences of the forest logging prohibition, the entropy technique used to calculate the weight of them and the preferences technique based on the similarity to the ideal solution (TOPSIS) used to prioritize them. The analysis of the research findings identified 6 positive and 17 negative consequences from economic and social aspects for the forest logging prohibition based on 55 questionnaires received.The results of consequences weighting showed that among the positive consequences, the consequences of increasing the economic values of forest environmental services and the tendency towards wood cultivation with weights 0.200573 and 0.200426 respectivly, and from the negative consequences, increasing wood smuggling 0.05163 and reducing employment 0.0513133 have the most weight. The results of prioritization of consequences showed that among the positive and negative consequences, changing the dependent management of wood to multiple management forest and increasing wood smuggling have the highest priority among other consequences. Also the results showed that in positive consequences, economic perspective and in negative consequences, social perspective gained more weight. Therefore, we are suggested that in order to implement the forest logging prohibition plan, programs considered for accurate, continuous monitoring and budget allocation for increaseing forest protection and reduce wood smuggling and create job opportunities by the government.