An investigating on causes for rancher’s unwillingness to livestock exclusion from the forests of the Galikesh County, Iran

Despite the implementation of forest protection programs during the last decade, the continued presence of livestock is one of the reasons for vegetation decline in Iran's forests. Therefore, livestock exclusion is an important necessity for forest conservation. This study was done with the aim of investigating the causes for rancher’s unwillingness to livestock exclusion from forest in Galikesh County in Golestan province of Iran. Using multistage random sampling method, 150 ranchers living in the bordering villages of the forest in Central and Loveh Districts in Galikesh County were selected as research samples. Data was collected using questionnaires with content and validity confirmed by experts. Cronbach's alpha coefficient was used to determine the validity of the questionnaire, which returned the value of 0.89. The results showed that 12 factors were responsible for the ranchers’ unwillingness to livestock exclusion from forest, which included dependence on ranching occupation, disbelief in the Plan for Organizing Livestock Exclusion from Forests, lack of a suitable place to keep livestock, weak financial strength, ancestor affiliations, legal rights to graze livestock, insufficiency of granted financial facilities, lack of participation, high cost of industrial livestock, lack of justification training, lack of proper cooperation of the banking system and belief in usefulness of livestock grazing in the forest, which explained 64.07% of the total variance of the factors related to the ranchers’ unwillingness to livestock exclusion from forest. Implementing empowerment training programs and creating diversity in ranchers' livelihoods resources is one of the suggestions of this study for increasing willingness for livestock exclusion from forest.