Effects of Forest Fire on Livelihood of Forest Inhabitants, A Case of Golestan Province

Destruction and forest fire are one of the most important environmental problems. Annually, forest fire destroys thousands of hectares of trees, shrubs and forest plants and the vulnerability of the livelihood of villagers and forest dwellers increases. The present research was conducted with the aim of investigating the effects of forest fires on the livelihood of villagers in forest areas.

This research is a descriptive-survey type and a researcher-made questionnaire was used to collect data. The geographical area of ​​the research includes Chehelchai watershed, Minoodasht city, Golestan province. To investigate and measure the index of vulnerability caused by forest fires, five dimensions of sustainable livelihood index including natural capital, financial capital, physical capital, human capital and social capital were used with a total of 19 items. Each item was measured based on a five-point Likert scale. The statistical population of the research included 400 households in the villages of the Chehelchai watershed, where the highest number of fires have occurred in recent years in their geographical area. In this research, using Cochran's formula, 200 rural households were selected and interviewed by stratified random sampling method. Spearman's correlation coefficient test was used to determine the relationship between the respondents' personal characteristics and their opinions regarding the effect of forest fires on the villagers' livelihoods. Mann-Whitney test was used to compare the opinions of the respondents regarding the extent of the impact of forest fires on the livelihood of villagers.

The results showed that forest fires had the greatest impact on the livelihood of villagers, respectively, on natural capital with a non-weighted linear combination of 4.08 and the least impact on social capital with a non-weighted linear combination of 1.63. The results of the correlation coefficient test showed that there is a positive and significant relationship between the amount of agricultural land under ownership and the agricultural history of the respondents with their views on the impact of forest fires on the livelihood of villagers. There is a negative and significant relationship between the variable of age and also between the variable of the number of dependents and the opinion of the respondents regarding the effect of forest fire on livelihood. The findings also showed that there is a positive and significant relationship between the level of education and the opinion of the respondents regarding the effect of forest fires on the livelihood of villagers. The results of the Mann-Whitney test showed that there is no significant difference between the views of different groups of respondents regarding the extent of the effect of forest fires on the livelihood of villagers.

The local communities studied in this research unanimously believe that forest fires have negative effects on their livelihoods through the impact on natural, financial and human capitals. Therefore, it is suggested that the responsible organizations strengthen the efficiency of protection measures, reforestation, and reduce damages caused by forest fires by planning and implementing social and cooperative forestry.