Sustainable management of Kiyan forest reserve-Iran: An analysis of hierarchal process

Management of natural ecosystems, like forests, has several objectives such as wood production, sustainability of ecological systems, preserving aestheti,c and cultural or psychological satisfaction. This management is especially essential in dry regions with sensitive biodiversity, like Iran. The aim of this research is to elaborate a management scheme for developing a sustainable tourism plan for the Kiyan Forest Reserve, using an Analytical Hierarchy Process. At this point, four management alternatives were evaluated from socioeconomic, management (monitoring by governmental or private sector), environment and recreational perspectives. Each part was given a weight based on the opinions of specialists and local experts and tourist (by means of Questionnaire) using the "Expert Choice 11" Software. The results showed that the importance of these criteria is descending in the following order: socioeconomic, management (monitoring), environment, and finally promotion of the regional conservation and biological actions. Also, contribution of each part to the management plan was 47.8% for the environment and 46.2% for the promoting plan of the regional management. In this study, environment criterion is selected as the most important criterion and upgrading region protection is introduced as the best plan. Consideration towards the application of Analytical Hierarchy Process in tourism sustainable development and based on the former findings concludes that protection level in this area must be upgraded to national natural zone.