Purpose Destinations wishing to exploit their natural resources, such as wetlands, for tourism development are wise to reach consensus among their community’s stakeholders on the policies and practices needed to sustainably manage tourism development and activities in their fragile natural environments. Drawing from an old adage that you cannot manage what you do not measure, one of the most important challenges facing policymakers and destination managers is the measurement of tourism to determine if it is meeting its desired objectives. This paper aims to focus on producing a system for monitoring the performance of tourism development on sustainable tourism practices. Design/methodology/approach The proposed system is based upon a qualitative study using the Delphi method involving stakeholders from different areas of expertise in rural economic development and natural resource management. Findings After three rounds in the Delphi stage, the participants reached consensus on the following set of 69 indicators: Environmental (8 sub-components and 19 indicators), Socio-cultural (7 sub-components and 24 indicators) and Economic (8 sub-components and 26 indicators) for sustainable tourism development performance in the wetland areas. Originality/value The provided scale in this manuscript will allow the planners/managers to assess the sustainable tourism development in their area in an easy and reliable way.
Purpose Eating patterns around the world have changed considerably, including food choices and preparation. One of these alterations in food consumption patterns is an increase in desire for fast-food consumption, which has been associated with poor diet quality. In order to analyze consumers’ food consumption behaviors, it is necessary to account for psychological factors (e.g. attitudes) that shape behaviors. Thus, the purpose of this paper is to explore influencing factors on the attitudes of consumers in Isfahan City toward fast-food consumption, so as to understand why consumers use fast-food despite widespread knowledge of the negative health consequences. Design/methodology/approach The predominant paradigm of the present study was quantitative, in that it was a correlational survey. The population of this study consisted of consumers who lived in Isfahan city in June 2015. A total sample of 350 people was selected using convenience sampling. Data were collected through a face-to-face interview with the consumers using a researcher-made questionnaire. Analysis was conducted using SPSS (V20) and AMOS (V20) software and a set of correlation and differential tests. Findings The results revealed that “health consciousness” and “trust” are the main effective factors on the attitudes of the respondents. The results also revealed that the elder and married respondents have more positive attitudes toward fast-food consumption. Originality/value It is worth mentioning that fast-food has become an important part of the Iranian diet. These findings have both academic and policy implications. The results showed that the need for much more consumer education regarding fast-food and mass media could effectively be used. Further, the government should support and subsidize fast-food restaurants so that they may produce healthier food options.
The production of genetically modified (GM) crops is growing around the world, and with it possible opportunities to combat food insecurity and hunger, as well as solutions to current problems facing conventional agriculture. In this regard the use of GMOs in food and agricultural applications has increased greatly over the past decade. However, the development of GM crops has been a matter of considerable interest and worldwide public controversy. This, in addition to skepticism, has stifled the use of this practice on a large scale in many areas, including Iran. It stands to reason that a greater understanding of this practice could be formed after a review of the existing expert opinions surrounding GM crops. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to analyze the predictors that influence agricultural experts' attitudes toward the development of and policies related to GM crops. Using a descriptive correlational research method, questionnaire data was collected from 65 experts from the Agricultural Organization in the Gotvand district in Southwest Iran. Results indicated that agricultural experts were aware of the environmental benefits and possible risks associated with GM crops. The majority of participants agreed that GM crops could improve food security and accelerate rural development, and were proponents of labeling practices for GM crops. Finally, there was a positive correlation between the perception of benefits and attitudes towards GM crops.
Adaptation to climate change is a matter of urgent social scientific analysis. Within the agricultural sector of many developing nations, farmers must make long-term decisions to adapt to climate change impacts in order to provide food security and sustainable livelihoods.However, deeper understanding of farmers' decision-making, as a key stakeholder group, is of vital importance in forming adaptive land use policy 'from the bottom-up'. This study investigates the psychosocial factors that influence farmers' adaptation intention in the critical case of Marvdasht County in Iran -a case that exemplifies agricultural stakeholder decisionmaking in arid and drought-prone regions. We present a conceptual combination-model grounded in Protection Motivation Theory (PMT), employing a correlational survey among 256 farmer-stakeholders. First, we discuss the relative value of the combined model to understanding adaptation intentions. Second, we find that the factors that represent the externalities of farmers' behaviour need to be more thoroughly integrated in to adaptation planning. Third, we find that farmers' adaptation intention is directly affected by maladaptation, and indirectly by economic disincentives, barriers to belief in anthropogenic climate change and broader risk perceptions.
Organisms that have been genetically engineered and modified (GM) are referred to as genetically modified organisms (GMOs). Bt crops are plants that have been genetically modified to produce certain proteins from the soil bacteria Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt), which makes these plants resistant to certain lepidopteran and coleopteran species. Genetically Modified (GM) rice was produced in 2006 by Iranian researchers from Tarom Mowla'ii and has since been called 'Bt rice'. As rice is an important source of food for over 3 billion inhabitants on Earth, this study aims to use a correlational survey in order to shed light on the predicting factors relating to the extent of stakeholders' behavioral intentions towards Bt rice. It is assumed and the results confirm that "attitudes toward GM crops" can be used as a bridge in the Attitude Model and the Behavioral Intention Model in order to establish an integrated model. To this end, a case study was made of the Southwest part of Iran in order to verify this research model. This study also revealed that as a part of the integrated research framework in the Behavior Intention Model both constructs of attitude and the subjective norm of the respondents serve as the predicting factors of stakeholders' intentions of working with Bt rice. In addition, the Attitude Model, as the other part of the integrated research framework, showed that the stakeholders' attitudes toward Bt rice can only be determined by the perceived benefits (e.g. positive outcomes) of Bt rice.
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