The Investigation on the economic and social consequences offorest logging in Mazandaran Province

Forest logging is one of the most important goals of forest management system having different economic and social consequences. This research aims at identifying, weighting and prioritizing the economic and social consequences of forest logging using the points of view of the experts, specialists in this fild and rural communities on the margins of forested forests. For thispurpose, forests managed by the department of natural resources of Mazandaran province in Sari were selected. In this regard, a researcher-made questionnaire has been used to identify the effective and important consequences of forest logging from both economic and social perspectives. Entropy technique has been used to calculate their weight and TOPSIS has been applied to prioritize them. Analyzing the findings of this study by using 55 questionnaires identified 12 positive and 8 negative consequences from economic and social aspects of forest logging. The results of weighting the positive and negative consequences of forest logging using entropy technique showed that employment created positive consequence with weight (0.083560) and logging costs negative consequence with weights (0.125503) had the highest weight among other consequences. Also the results of prioritizing the positive and negative consequences of forest logging by TOPSIS technique showed that the economic viewpoint had the highest priority in both consequences. Therefore, it is suggested more attention be paid to the positive and negative economic consequences of forest logging in forest management programs and not to focus only on stopping the forest logging.