Challenges Facing the Improvement of Forest Management in the Hyrcanian Forests of Iran
department or school: Forestry, Faculty of
department or school: Non UBC
department or school: Forest Resources Management, Department of
data provider: DSpace
identifier citation: Forests 13 (12): 2180 (2022)
creator: Goushehgir, Zahra
creator: Feghhi, Jahangir
creator: Innes, John L.
issued: 2025-06-09T18:03:24Z
issued: 2022-12-19
description: We address two main challenges facing the implementation of sustainable forest management (SFM) in the Hyrcanian forest of Iran: inconsistent forest policy and the use of outdated science and techniques. We propose the Sustainable Hyrcanian Forest Management Model (SHFMM) as the best currently available solution to achieve improved management of the northern forests of Iran. The management of the Hyrcanian forests suffers from a lack of scientific knowledge and state-of-the-art technologies. There is a pronounced difference in the mindsets of older and new-school forestry scholars regarding how to approach these deficiencies: the old-school mentality prefers conventional forestry despite its limitations, whereas more recently trained scholars believe that the adoption of 21st-century technological advances would lead to improved management. The lack of trust between policymakers and local communities is another significant challenge and has resulted in conflicts over management practices in the Hyrcanian forests. We suggest that the Hyrcanian Sustainable Forest management model (SHFMM) would provide a hierarchical framework for making decisions. Using this model, each sector—whether state or private—is empowered to make decisions. Further, it encourages all sectors to work together in its holistic implementation. The SHFMM is based on the outcomes of several independent studies of forest management in the Hyrcanian forest. Despite its site specificity, many lessons learned during its development could be applied elsewhere.
aggregated CHO: https://circle.library.ubc.ca/rest/handle/2429/91306
note: Citation: Goushehgir, Z.; Feghhi, J.;Innes, J.L. Challenges Facing theImprovement of Forest Managementin the Hyrcanian Forests of Iran.Forests 2022, 13, 2180. https://doi.org/10.3390/f13122180Academic Editor: RawshanAra BegumReceived: 7 September 2022Accepted: 13 December 2022Published: 19 December 2022Publisher’s Note: MDPI stays neutralwith regard to jurisdictional claims inpublished maps and institutional affil-iations.Copyright: © 2022 by the authors.Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.This article is an open access articledistributed under the terms andconditions of the Creative CommonsAttribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).ReviewChallenges Facing the Improvement of Forest Management inthe Hyrcanian Forests of IranZahra Goushehgir 1,*, Jahangir Feghhi 2 and John L. Innes 11 Department of Forest Resources Management, University of British Columbia,Vancouver, BC V6T 1Z4, Canada2 Department of Forestry and Forest Economics, Faculty of Natural Resources, University of Tehran,Karaj 146899-5513, Iran* Correspondence: seyedeh.goushehgir@ubc.caAbstract: We address two main challenges facing the implementation of sustainable forest manage-ment (SFM) in the Hyrcanian forest of Iran: inconsistent forest policy and the use of outdated scienceand techniques. We propose the Sustainable Hyrcanian Forest Management Model (SHFMM) as thebest currently available solution to achieve improved management of the northern forests of Iran. Themanagement of the Hyrcanian forests suffers from a lack of scientific knowledge and state-of-the-arttechnologies. There is a pronounced difference in the mindsets of older and new-school forestryscholars regarding how to approach these deficiencies: the old-school mentality prefers conventionalforestry despite its limitations, whereas more recently trained scholars believe that the adoption of21st-century technological advances would lead to improved management. The lack of trust betweenpolicymakers and local comm…
has type: Article
is shown at: 10.14288/1.0449067
language: eng
peer review status: Reviewed
provider: Vancouver : University of British Columbia Library
publisher: Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute
publisher DOI: 10.3390/f13122180
rights: CC BY 4.0
rights URI: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
scholar level: Faculty
scholar level: Researcher
subject: sustainable forest management
subject: the Hyrcanian sustainable forest management model
subject: forest science
subject: forest technology
subject: Analytic Hierarchy Process
subject: Iran
type: Text
identifier URI: http://hdl.handle.net/2429/91306