The Role of Social Capital on Self-Efficacy of Rural Women in Zagros Forest Conservation by Mediating Environmental Awareness

Rural participation in natural resource management indicates that managing natural resource crises would not be possible without the active participation of rural women due to their active role in production and agriculture. In this regard, this research aims was to role of social capital on self-efficacy of rural women in Zagros Forest Conservation by mediating environmental awareness. The statistical population included all rural women over 15 years in Lorestan province (N= 231000). Sample size was using Cochran sampling formula of 226 person by proportional classification method (based on forest area). Data analysis in two sections: descriptive and inferential statistics was software SPSS Win19 and SMARTPls performed. The validity of this study was verified by a panel of experts and calculation of the (AVE) and its reliability by Cronbach's alpha and composite reliability. The results showed that from the viewpoint of rural women, the most important causes of Zagros deforestation were destruction of firewood and rural consumption and high grazing livestock and the most important strategies for protecting forests were to change the livelihoods of forests and to graze for over-entry livestock. In addition, the results indicated that social capital directly and indirectly (through impact on environmental awareness) influenced the self-efficacy of rural women in conservation of Zagros forests. In addition, the results of structural equations showed that social capital and environmental awareness were able to explain 69.4 of the dependent variable of research (self-efficacy).