Comparison of Experts and Rangers’ Opinions on Prioritizing Barriers in Participation of Rangers in Range Plans (Case Study: Tehran Province- Lar Moor)

There are some barriers for rangers to take part in range plan projects andevaluation. Their participation is very useful for range managers to plan and provide solutionsfor solving problems. This study aims at comparing barriers of participating from rangers andexperts point of view in Lar moor rangelands, Tehran, Iran. In this research, data werecollected based on documentation-library and field working. The statistical populations of thestudy were 410 rangers and 43 experts that arranged based on Cochran formula, 178 rangersand 35 experts had answered the distributed questionnaires. Validity and reliability ofquestionnaires were assessed by a preliminary test using SPSS software and Cronbach alphacoefficient. The results of Mann-Whitney U test showed that the opinions of two groups onboth the effects of legislative initiatives, economic, social-cultural and educational barriers andnon-participating rangers in the range projects of Lar moor are the same. But comparing theexperts and rangers` opinions on the effects of management factors on non-participatingrangers showed that the experst`s view of on the effects of this factor are more agreeable thanthose of rangers. Also, the results of this test showed that participation rate of rangers in rangeprojects is the same in terms of both ranger and expert groups. Prioritizong results showed thatfrom the viewpoint of rangers, economic, legal, educational, social and cultural barriers havecontributed to non-participation of rangers in the range projects. But from the viewpoints ofexperts, legal, educational, administrative, socio-cultural and economic barriers are the reasonsof rangers’ non-participation.