Title: Climate change perception and adaptation strategies elaborated by forestry professionals in Turkey

Authors: Lionel Constantin Fosso; Uzay Karahalil

Addresses: Department of Forest Engineering, Faculty of Forestry, Karadeniz Technical University, P.O. Box 61080, Trabzon, Turkey; Department of Forest Sciences, Faculty of Environment and Natural Sciences, Albert Lüdwigs University of Freiburg, Germany ' Department of Forest Engineering, Faculty of Forestry, Karadeniz Technical University, P.O. Box 61080, Trabzon, Turkey

Abstract: The aim of this study is to investigate forest manager's perception on climate change and their willingness to change forest structure and composition for adaptation in three selected study areas (Antalya, İstanbul and Trabzon) in Turkey. As method, a survey questionnaire was carried out on 279 respondents. As some results, respondents have indicated a very high awareness of climate change with about 88.3% of them who believe in it and identified real manifestations of climate change in their forest area respectively 92.9% in Antalya, 90.9% in İstanbul and 81.1% in Trabzon, with a strong statistical relationship (X² = 8.607, p = 0.01) between the region and the perception. As well 92% of respondents in Antalya reported to be more prepared for climate change risk management, than İstanbul (76.7%) and Trabzon (65%) with a significant difference (X² = 89.03, p < 0.01). Furthermore, 55.4% of the respondents reported a high willingness to modify their management practices for future adaptation with a significant difference between the respondents in Antalya (73.8%), İstanbul (37.8%) and Trabzon (54.5%).

Keywords: climate change; perception; adaptation; forest managers; Pearson correlation; Turkey.

DOI: 10.1504/IJGW.2021.112485

International Journal of Global Warming, 2021 Vol.23 No.1, pp.11 - 29

Received: 28 Apr 2020
Accepted: 15 Jun 2020
Published online: 19 Jan 2021 *

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