نوع مقاله : علمی - پژوهشی
نویسندگان
1 دانشجوی دکتری مدیریت جنگل، دانشکده منابع طبیعی، دانشگاه ارومیه، ارومیه، ایران
2 استاد، گروه جنگلداری، دانشکده منابع طبیعی دانشگاه ارومیه، ارومیه، ایران
3 دانشیار، گروه جنگلداری، دانشکده منابع طبیعی دانشگاه ارومیه، ارومیه، ایران
4 استاد، گروه اقتصاد و سیاست جنگل، دانشکده علوم محیطزیست، دانشگاه فنی درسدن، درسدن، آلمان
5 استادیار، گروه جنگلداری، دانشکده منابع طبیعی دانشگاه ارومیه، ارومیه، ایران
چکیده
کلیدواژهها
موضوعات
عنوان مقاله [English]
نویسندگان [English]
Background and objectives: The Arasbaran forests, recognized as a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve, face significant challenges to sustainable management. A major part of these challenges stems from conflicts of interest among diverse stakeholder groups, each possessing distinct objectives, needs, and levels of influence in forest use and conservation. Although conflicts of interest in natural resource management—particularly in forests—are common and have accompanied human exploitation of nature throughout history, systematic scientific attention to this issue, especially in Iranian forests, has been limited. Accordingly, this study aimed to identify and categorize the types of stakeholder conflicts in the Arasbaran forests to provide a clear understanding of the underlying causes of these conflicts and to facilitate the implementation of participatory management toward sustainable development in this valuable ecosystem.
Methodology: This research is applied in terms of objective, mixed-methods (quantitative and qualitative) in terms of data collection, and descriptive-analytical in terms of execution. The study population included local users and knowledgeable residents, government experts, members of non-governmental organizations (NGOs), and university faculty in the field of natural resources. The study was conducted in 18 selected villages within the protected areas and Dezmar region of the Arasbaran forests. Sampling was carried out using snowball tecnique and proportional random methods, resulting in data collection from 387 local residents, 41 government experts, 32 NGO members, and 33 university faculty members. Data were collected during 1403–1404 (2024–2025) through semi-structured interviews, semi-structured questionnaires, direct observation, and secondary data. The questionnaire’s validity was confirmed using face and content validity methods, and its reliability was verified with a Cronbach’s alpha of 0.93. To identify the final categories of conflicts of interest, exploratory factor analysis (EFA) was performed using principal component analysis (PCA) with direct oblimin rotation in SPSS version 26. The adequacy of the data for factor analysis was confirmed by the KMO test (0.920) and Bartlett’s test of sphericity (P = 0.00).
Results: The exploratory factor analysis revealed that 16 variables related to conflicts of interest in the Arasbaran forests could be classified into three main factors, explaining 75.699% of the total variance. The three factors were: (1) conflicts arising from forest resource use and human development, (2) managerial and governance conflicts, and (3) conflicts associated with tourism development. The first factor, the strongest dimension of conflict, included 10 variables such as livestock presence, construction of primary roads, agricultural land expansion, fuelwood production, timber harvesting, hunting, rural access roads construction, mining exploration and extraction, non-timber products harvesting, illegal harvest of non-timber products, reflecting direct human interventions in forest ecosystems. The second factor comprised five variables, including conflict between research activities and ecosystem conservation, agroforestry, use of water resource, conflict between forest dwellers and neighboring village residents, land tenure conflict, highlighting institutional, social, and governance challenges. The third factor included only the variable of tourism development, identified as an emerging and independent source of conflict. Furthermore, 19 stakeholder groups were identified and categorized into six main clusters: local communities (forest dwellers, pastoralists, farmers, and gardeners), direct forest resource users (local timber harvesters, non-timber forest product (NTFP) users and Wildlife hunters), livelihood and production-related activities (beekeepers, sericulturists, aquaculture farmers, forest raw material–dependent industries, and mine operators), tourism and related services (tourists and tourism service companies), governmental policy-making, management, and conservation (department of natural resources and watershed management, department of environment, organization of cultural heritage, handicrafts and tourism, military organizations), and research, education, and civil society actors (university faculty, researchers, and members of non-governmental organizations).
Conclusion: The findings provide a clear picture of the complexity and multidimensional nature of conflicts of interest in the Arasbaran forests, demonstrating that the diversity of stakeholders and the conflicts among their interests pose significant challenges to sustainable ecosystem management. Conflicts were primarily concentrated along two axes: physical-material pressures from direct resource exploitation and institutional-social challenges related to governance and land management. These circumstances underscore the need to shift from traditional, centralized approaches toward participatory governance. Implementing such an approach requires coordinated actions, including reducing destructive pressures on forest ecosystems through sustainable and alternative livelihoods, strengthening governance structures and clarifying access rights, planning sustainable tourism development, and, most importantly, establishing effective mechanisms for dialogue, trust-building, and genuine participation of all stakeholder groups in decision-making and management processes. Achieving a sustainable balance among conservation, economic, and social objectives in the region is only possible through such an integrated and synergistic approach.
کلیدواژهها [English]
)