Comparison of Cooperatives’ Members and Experts’ Views on Public Participation in Forestry and Rangeland By-Products (Case Study: Cooperative Companies, Lorestan Province, Iran)

This research was conducted to investigate the factors contributing to thefailure in the forestry and rangeland by-product cooperative companies in Lorestanprovince, Iran. A descriptive-correlative research design was used. The statisticalpopulations were 1100 people divided into two groups of experts from natural resourceagency in Lorestan province and members of cooperative companies. The sample size was183 persons. Sampling method was simple random type using Neyman–Pearson model.Data were analyzed based on descriptive statistics (T-Test) and Pearson correlationmethod. Single-sample t-test results showed that the views of the two groups on the effectsof technical and economic barriers causing failure in cooperatives companies were thesame, but the expert's views were different for managerial, educational, cultural, social,and legal indicators. Also the results of independent t-test between the two groups showedthat the views of both experts and members for economic, managerial, educational, andlegal barriers were the same, but their opinions for cultural, social and technical barrierswere different. The results of cooperatives’ member’s views ranked indicators asmanagerial, legal, educational, cultural, social, economic, and technical barriers. For theviews of experts they were ranked as cultural, social, managerial, economic, legal,technical, and educational barriers.