Determinants of rural women's membership in Zagros forest conservation cooperatives in Lorestan province

The Zagros forests are one of the most valuable natural ecosystems that are endangered and destroyed every year for various reasons including fires, over-exploitation, grazing, etc. Solution for protecting it lies in the participation of community members in general and rural women in particular. In this regard, one of the related organizations in this field is forest conservation cooperatives, which has not received much attention in this field. Therefore, the present study was conducted with the aim of finding factors affecting rural women's membership in Zagros Forest Conservation Cooperatives in Lorestan province. The statistical population included all rural women over 15 years in Lorestan province (N= 231000). Sample size was calculated using Cochran sampling formula of 235 persons by proportional classification method (based on forest area). The results of the discriminant analysis showed that the seven variables of forest dependence, social trust, environmental concerns, conservation attitudes, self-efficacy, knowledge of forest issues and conservation attitudes had the most power in separating member and non-member groups in cooperatives. In summary, the discriminant function from these seven variables is able to accurately differentiate the studied women with 86.5% accuracy in membership and non-membership of forest conservation cooperatives.