Structural modelling for explaining the participatory behavior of villagers towards forest conservation (Case study: Ardal Chahartagh Forest Reserve)

In order to test a hypothesis that participatory behavior of villagers towards forest conservation explained by their awareness and attitudes about forest importance, this study was conducted on rural households surrounding Chahartagh Forest Reserve (N=600). According to such criteria as objective, variable control degree and data gathering method, this study was empirical, survey and descriptive research, respectively. The statistical sample size was calculated 196 households through Cochran’s formula. Simple random sampling was done to select the study cases and a researcher-designed questionnaire used to collect data which its content validity confirmed by experts opinions and its reliability confirmed by Cronbach alpha coefficient. The data were analyzed by IBM SPSS ver.21 and LISREL ver. 8.5 softwares. The results showed that households’ livelihood almost depended on forest resources and the majority of them were low-literacy, low income and high sponsorship. Structural modelling results of households’ participatory behavior in forest conservation also revealed that the model explained their behavior properly and was valid. Also, the main hypothesis of the study was confirmed that the households’ participation to forest conservation was a function of their awareness and attitude toward forest importance as these two components could totally explained 60 percent of participation variances. Finally, one unit increase in awareness and attitudes variables increased the amount of households’ participation to conserve forest to 0.32 and 0.41 units, respectively.