Factor Analysis of Obstacles to the Local Communities Participation in the Biological Restoration and Desertification Plans of Carbon Sequestration Project in the Lapui County, Fars Province

The aim of this study was to discover the Obstacles of local community’s participation in biological restoration and desertification control plans in the Lapui County, Fars Province. The study is an applied research in terms of purpose, a survey study in terms of collecting data, a field study in terms of controlling variables, and a exploration study in terms of research method. The statistical population of the study consisted of 600 active households of Sustainable Development Cooperative in the Lapui County. Using the Morgan's and Krejcy's tables, the sample size was determined to 234 households. The data gathering tool was a questionnaire whose validity had been confirmed by a panel of experts, and its reliability was confirmed by the Cronbach's alpha coefficient (α > 0.7). The data analysis was conducted by using the SPSS18 and AMOS software. In order to analyze the results, in descriptive section, the centrality (mean and mode), and the dispersion (range of variations, variance, and standard deviation) statistics were calculated, and for the inferential part of the analysis, an exploratory factor analysis was used to factorize the barriers. Results indicated that the most important barriers to participation of local communities in the carbon sequestration project can be identified in six categories: lack of mutual trust and belief, lack of awareness and information channels, administrative and institutional barriers, the implementation barriers, lack of government support, and lack of community needs assessment and satisfaction, which explained a sum of 83.36% of the total variance. The credibility of these barriers was also confirmed by the confirmatory factor analysis.