Prioritization of Criteria and Tree Species in Agroforestry

Abstract

Today, forests, which are one of the most important resources capable of naturally renewing themselves, are not considered and operated only as the resources of wood raw materials. The products and the protective services provided by forests are of greater importance in terms of intensive forestry approach that aims to meet the demands of the modern society. The different ecological conditions of our country as well as the wide range of species arising correspondingly increase the potential of agroforestry practices which are to make important contributions, especially in terms of food, chemistry, medicine and energy sectors. Within this scope, poplar, salix, robinia pseudoacacia, cupressus, juglans, chestnut and stone pine are the first species that spring to mind, when it comes to agroforestry practices in Turkey. In this study, it is aimed to identify the most suitable species, i.e. to make species prioritisation, in a potential agroforestry site for the agroforestry plantations to be established in the future by using the chestnut, stone pine and poplar species used in private and state afforestation in Bartin region in terms of the suitability of ecological conditions, with the use of the Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) Method, which is one of today's multidimensional and widely used decision making methods. For this purpose, taking the ecological, technical, social and economic criteria in the study area into consideration, a questionnaire study was conducted with 80 participants at different ages and educational levels, and the results were evaluated by AHP method. According to the analysis results, the species prioritization for the agroforestry plantations in Bartin region was found to be as follows: 1 st Chestnut, 2 nd Stone pine and 3 rd Poplar. The ecological and economic criteria are the most important ones effective in this ranking. In terms of sub-criteria, Net Income Maximization received the highest value.