Investigating the Effect of Carbon Sequestration Plan on Principle of Broaden Participation in Building Resilience of Social-Ecological Systems (Case study: Khatam, Jajarm and Galikesh counties)

The resilience of social-ecological systems to environmental changes such as climate change requires the guarantee of environmental systems such as water supply systems and human resources such as resource governance systems and stakeholder participation. In Iran, the International Carbon Sequestration Project, in cooperation, was initially launched in 2005 with the aim of preventing the phenomenon of desertification. Therefore, in this study, the local communities of the three target areas of this project, including Khatam, Jajarm and Oghan watershed of Galikesh and the impact of the project on the broaden of stakeholder participation were examined. For this purpose, two villages from each region were selected by simple random sampling and a questionnaire measuring the broaden participation among farmers and ranchers in the target villages was completed. The results showed that the implementation of carbon sequestration plan in the three study areas in the five dimensions studied did not increase the broaden participation to an acceptable level. Also, the comparison of the performance of the three regions showed that in Jajarm, the weakest performance and in Galikesh, the best performance has been done in order to expand the participation of stakeholders. Indicators of broaden participation were acceptable only in Ogan watershed and Khatam in 14 out of 90 possible cases. As a result, transparency of goals and expectations, presence and involvement of stakeholders, facilitation, and leadership, capacity building, power, and sourcing in all aspects of social, economic, organizational, infrastructure, and social capital have not performed well. Therefore, the resilience of ecosystem services in the three study areas will be jeopardized due to the lack of expansion of stakeholder participation.