Determination of forest management purposes and forest functions in accordance with the participation and multipurpose utilization principles

Abstract

The aim of this study conducted is to determine the forest management purposes, which effect the forest management plans and therefore and the forestry works in all aspects, and the forest functions with a participatory approach. In this way, it is aimed to make the forest management plans made to be in compliance with the multi-purpose utilization and participation principles which are the main principles of sustainable forestry. Drahna Forest Sub-District Directorate, which is affiliated to Ulus Forestry Operation Directorate of Zonguldak Regional Directorate of Forestry was selected as the planning unit. The forest villagers, which are the most important of the participatory groups, which have been living inside and around the forest area during both winter and summer for many years and therefore are a natural part of the forest ecosystem, were taken into consideration. A questionnaire form was prepared for the housings including questions of the participants in relation with their views on forests and forest resources, their ways of utilization and requests. The questionnaire forms were applied to each household head living in total of 185 houses in 11 forest villages located within the boundaries of the relevant sub-district directorate and in the case that the household head was not available, to people over 18. The data entry was performed by coding the data obtained from the questionnaire forms in SPSS version 22 program which is one of the statistical package programs. The management purposes and forest functions were determined with participatory approach by using the obtained data in explanatory factor analysis. 16 variables, which were the most suitable for factor analysis and had the highest correlation strength, were gathered under 6 factors of which the eigenvalues were higher than 1 and described 61.96% of the total variance together. The variables with low common variance (below 0.50) were excluded from the analysis in order to increase the accuracy of the analysis and to increase the value of the explained variance. The Rotated Factor Matrix was used in order to present the 16 variables with a more meaningful and actual expression based on the correlation strength between them and the factors were named based on their meanings. According to the factor analysis results, 2 main management purposes and 5 general management purposes, 3 main functions and 3 general forest functions emerged for the concerning plan unit based on the participatory approach. The main management purposes for the plan unit were determined as production and protection; the general management purposes as nature conservation, production of non-wood forest products, tourism and recreation, vegetative and animal production with wood production; the main forest functions as ecological, economic and sociocultural; the general forest functions as forest products production, nature conservation, ecotourism and recreation. As the questionnaire studies and analyses contributed to the determination of the forest management purposes and functions with a participatory approach, they also contribute to the identification of the views of forest villagers and villagers on the forest ecosystem, demands, and suggestions and to reveal their socio-economic and cultural aspects.