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Research article2014Peer reviewedOpen access

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?

Tolunay, Ahmet; Turkoglu, Turkay; Elbakidze, Marine; Angelstam, Per

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

Published in

Sustainability
2014, Volume: 6, number: 10, pages: 7181-7196
Publisher: MDPI AG

      SLU Authors

      • Sustainable Development Goals

      SDG11 Make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable
      SDG8 Promote sustained, inclusive and sustainable economic growth, full and productive employment and decent work for all
      SDG12 Ensure sustainable consumption and production patterns

      UKÄ Subject classification

      Environmental Sciences

      Publication identifier

      DOI: https://doi.org/10.3390/su6107181

      Permanent link to this page (URI)

      https://res.slu.se/id/publ/67569