Determination of the Support Level of Local Organizations in a Model Forest Initiative: Do Local Stakeholders Have Willingness to Be Involved in the Model Forest Development?

Ahmet Tolunay, Türkay Türkoglu, Marine Elbakidze and Per Angelstam
Additional contact information
Ahmet Tolunay: Faculty of Forestry, Suleyman Demirel University, Isparta 32000, Turkey
Türkay Türkoglu: Department of Forestry, Koycegiz Vocational School, Mugla Sitki Kocman University, Mugla 48800, Turkey
Marine Elbakidze: Faculty of Forest Sciences, School for Forest Management, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Uppsala PO Box 43 73921, Sweden
Per Angelstam: Faculty of Forest Sciences, School for Forest Management, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Uppsala PO Box 43 73921, Sweden

Sustainability, 2014, vol. 6, issue 10, 1-16

Abstract: Voluntary cooperation and the support of stakeholders carry a major importance in the development of Model Forests. The identification of the support level of local organizations as stakeholders in the Bucak Model Forest initiative, located in the Mediterranean region of Turkey, constitutes the theme of this study. Within this scope, the views of the stakeholders comprising local government units (LGUs), non-governmental organizations (NGOs), village councils (VCs), professional organizations (POs) and forest products enterprises (FPEs) located in the district of Bucak were collected by utilizing a survey technique. The data were analysed by using non-parametric statistical analyses due to the absence of a normal distribution. The results show that the information provided about the Model Forest concept to the stakeholders located in the district on the Bucak Model Forest initiative was identified as a factor impacting the support level. Moreover, it was also observed that the stakeholders were more willing to provide advisory support rather than financial support. NGOs and VCs were identified as stakeholders who could not provide financial support due to their restricted budgets. We discuss the benefits for a Model Forest initiative of establishing international cooperation to strengthen the local and regional sustainable development process.

Keywords: local organizations; stakeholders; model forest concept; willingness to support; multi-level learning; Bucak model forest initiative; Mediterranean region; Turkey (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2014
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

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