People Participation, an Undeniable Necessity for Conserving Forest Areas of Arasbaran Region in Iran

Abstract

The issue of participation has recently become an interesting point for many national, regional and international institutions. Participation and collaboration of Iranians in the field of natural resources conservation has an old history. During a long period of time, vast areas of natural resources have been protected by the dwellers and indigenous users; we are witnessing deep land use changes in the fields of natural resources so that we can observe its negative impacts in different places because of changes in the traditional systems of exploitation, decentralization, lack of appropriate alternative participatory system, population growth, poverty and lack of adequate knowledge of users,. It is while, the villagers and forest's inhabitants, play an important role in managing of natural resources particularly in forested areas. It is because they have an indigenous knowledge which can be used in the process of natural resources management. Among Iranian forests, Arasbaran Region has a significant ecological value for the whole country as well as regional ecosystems. Hence, for protecting the forests of this region, people participation is inevitable. For an appropriate participatory forestry in this region, first of all there must be an adequate awareness about inhabitants of region. For this purpose, many methods such as PRA or RRA can be used. In the present research, Arasbaran forested region was investigated and people collaboration and participation with respect to the developing and protecting of forests of the region were analyzed using Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA). Accordingly, this research tried to spotlight the people participation in the protection of natural resources. The results revealed that, expanding people’s participation in this field depends on informing local people, decentralizing management process, reducing poverty, facilitating and improving the participation mechanism.