Abstract
The present study adopts a game theory approach analyzing land-use planning in Zagros forests, Iran. A Static Game of Incomplete Information (SGII) was applied to the evaluation of participatory forest management in the study area. This tool allows a complete assessment of sustainable forest planning producing two modeling scenarios based on (i) high and (ii) low social acceptance. According to the SGII results, the Nash Bayesian Equilibrium (NBE) strategy suggests the importance of landscape protection in forest management. The results of the NBE analytical strategy show that landscape protection with barbed wires is the most used strategy in local forest management. The response to the local community includes cooperation in conditions of high social acceptance and noncooperation in conditions of low social acceptance. Overall, social acceptance is an adaptive goal in forest management plans.
Highlights
Forestry refers to the use of forest landscapes to achieve specific objectives [1]
The (CN, E) strategy is a strategy through which neither the local community nor the executive government wants to change because if the strategy changes, the payoff in the game will reduce. We found that this balance, which is achieved by integrating the demands of Local Communities (LCs) and executive management-with a focus on the enclosure of forests-can be a source of conflicts in the implementation of Zagros forest management plans
Compared to other game theory analyses, the model proposed in this study is new in forest management
Summary
Forestry refers to the use of forest landscapes to achieve specific objectives [1]. Community forestry results from the management of woodlands when the aim is to create a specific benefit for the neighboring communities [2,3]. Coordinating local commitments and engaging civil society to reconcile management asymmetry and build consensus can promote sustainable outcomes [4,5]. In these regards, a modeling approach, providing a set of interactive scenarios in forest management contributes to more effective policies addressing socioeconomic problems of Local Communities (LCs). CBFM is a way of authorizing Local Communities (LCs) of a forest to participate in the decision-making processes [4] This kind of forest managed by CBFM is called ‘community forests’, which provide economic and environmental services to more than half a billion LCs worldwide [6]. LCs have goals that usually are diverse from the ones of official forest managers, in terms of Wood Products (WP)-fuel wood, bark or cork, and Non-Wood Forest Products (NWFP), as the case of mushrooms, goat feeding or fruits, for instance
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