Abstract:

The study was conducted to determine the effects of converting coppice forests into high forests on the socio-economic structure of villagers living in or near the forests, as well as the level of satisfaction and the factors affecting this level. The research area is forest villages within the scope of the Istanbul Regional Directorate of Forestry. The main material of this study consisted of questionnaire data of 425 subjects. As the research methods, descriptive statistics were calculated, and applied Wilcoxon Signed Ranks and Friedman Two-Way Variance tests, along with Multivariate Regression analysis. 68% of the subjects want the coppice business to continue even if the economic conditions are good. As a result of the conversion of coppices into high forests between 2003 and 2018, the rate of forest villagers working in the forestry sector decreased from 93% to 43%, and the rate of those earning income from forests decreased from 89% to 50%. As a result, it can be said that the act of conversion to the high forest of coppices forests, which is an important socioeconomic decision, should be taken after the welfare of forest villagers is based on non-forest livelihoods and with a participatory approach.

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