Fuzzy Analytic Hierarchy Process (FAHP) applied to evaluating the forest management approaches

Abstract

The study mainly aims at looking into the disparities in beneficiary’s socio-economic status between the areas without implementation of forestry plans and the areas where forestry plans had initially been available even though they have recently been terminated as well. Babol Roud forestry plan is located in Lafoor forest area in the Babol County, the Mazandaran Province, Northeast Iran. This research was divided into three steps: first of all, by making use of Cochran’s formula, we identified the number of participants. Later on, the Delphi method was employed in order to determine criteria and subcriteria through the questionnaires. From then on, Fuzzy Analytic Hierarchy Process (FAHP) was used to quantify the criteria that were weighted by experts’ viewpoints through the planned questionnaires. By adopting the Fuzzy Forests method, we found out that the economic, environmental, social and managerial criteria are most prominent. Forestry project staff’s income was in the highest relative weight (0.23) based on participant’s viewpoint. Most of the participants in the study did not give their consent to the forestry plan suspension due to the inevitably forthcoming economic and environmental problems ahead. Instead, they strongly underlined the need to go into immediate action such as revising the former plans as well as constant stream of close attention to the plan execution details of the ongoing process. Eventually, developing a new policy and using alternative forest management strategies that would meet the needs of all various stakeholders have been recommended.