Determining the effects on forests of socioeconomic change in forest village (A case study: Kastamonu province)

Because of the increasing technological opportunities, people have continuously migrated to larger cities from rural areas to meet their social demands faster and easier. These migrations accelerated especially after 1980's, and it resulted in land use/land cover changes in regions due to cultural, economic, social and political developments. The changes in land use/land cover have affected forest villages that constitute 9% of the population of rural areas. In this study, it was aimed to determine the changes in the socioeconomic situations of the forest villagers as well as the changes in the acreage of forested land in forest villages following 1970's in Kastamonu city, Turkey. In order to define the socioeconomic situations of the forest villagers, face-to-face questionnaires with 401 forest villagers age 55 or older were conducted in 39 forest villages. In addition, forested lands for three time periods of 1975-1990, 1990-2000 and 2000-2016 were examined using the Landsat Satellite Images for the same forest villages. Using the data from the questionnaires and the Landsat images, several statistical analysis including percent analysis method, chi-square test, t-test and correlation analyses were utilized. As a result, it was found that 64% of the forest villagers in Kastamonu city have better economic situations today in comparison to 1970's. The 36% of the questionnaires have a monthly income lower than 330$, while 37% of them have no additional income. It was revealed that the demand of the forest villagers on wood products for construction has substantially decreased since 1970's, while the demand on firewood has relatively reduced. Recently, the rate of forest crime conducted by forest villagers has also reduced since 1970's. As for the acreage of forested lands within these forest villages, the total forested land was 44 265,6 hectare in 1975, and it decreased to 37 649,8 hectare in 1990, and to 34 394,4 hectare in 2000. From 2000 to 2016, the total forested land reached to 43 646,1 hectare increasing by 9 251,7 hectare. Based on the results attained in this study, this dissertation suggests the development of forest villages, convincing of young populations to return back to their villages, and enhancement of the socioeconomic situations of the forest villagers.