Investigating the challenges of biodiversity management of Sefidkuh Khoramabad protected area by using the Delphi method

Abstract

The main source of economic and agricultural development of all countries is natural resources. The dependency of local communities on natural resources and protected areas, and the excessive exploitation of forests and pastures and wildlife, has led to the destruction and degradation of biodiversity. The basis of managing protected areas in Iran is based on protection, research, training and entertaining, but in reality, protection is only limited to one fifth of these areas, which are safe. There is no management on the surrounding lands (the danger of islandization). Therefore, the purpose of this study is to identify and investigate the challenges of biodiversity management of Sefidkuh Khoramabad Protected Area by using Delphi method. This is a descriptive-analytic study. Thus, after identifying the available biodiversity and field visits and identifying the threats in the region, questionnaires were designed by experts regarding the Likert scale and were given to experts and specialists.

The questions were answered by the experts and were analyzed by SPSS Software, the answers were prioritized by regression and descriptive analysis of existing threats and explained its relationship with four research variables (academic degree, familiarity with the region, job and employee of the organization). Then, this priority was organized as a questionnaire, and was given to the expert for final approval and identification of the main threats. Finally, some suggestions and recommendations are given.

Keywords: Biodiversity, Challenges, Protected Areas, Sefidkouh, Prioritization