Turkish Journal of Forestry (Feb 2017)
Effects of forest certification applications on forest resources management in Turkey
Abstract
Almost all of the forests in Turkey are owned by the state and they are managed by General Directorate of Forestry (GDF). GDF has been getting forest management certified some of its forests byForest Stewardship Council (FSC) since 2011. As of 2016, 29 forest district directorates and 1 forest sub-district directorate become certified. In this study, it is aimed to investigate forest certification and primary certification schemes with present situation and contributions of FSC certified forest resources in Turkey after certification process. Primary data of this study is obtained by questionnaire method and secondary data is obtained from the searches that are conducted on books and studies on this subject. The statistical software (SPSS 20) is used to analyze the data which is obtained by questionnaire method. Due to non-normal distribution of the data, non-parametric Chi-Square test and Kruskal-Wallis H test are used for evaluation. In the result of this study, it is seen that forest management certification applications in Turkey has positive effects on subjects like, transparency in management and informing public, environmental impact assessment practices, environmental sensitivity and monitoring practices, on the other hand it has not any positive effects on subjects like production, demand, sales and forest product prices. As conclusion it is revealed that forest management certification applications in Turkey has positive contribution for forest practices on environmental and social issues but it has no positive contribution on economic issues.
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