چکیده:
Non-renewable natural resources play an important role in sustainable development of developing countries such as Iran. However, since the natural resources should be preserved for future generations, proper use of such resources seems mandatory. Women are one of the prime users of natural resources in developing countries. The purpose of this study is to assess the conservational behavior of rural women and factors influencing such behaviors regarding destruction, protection, and restoration of desert areas of Khuzestan province in Iran in a one-year period from Sep
2006 to Sep 2007. Rural women living in desert areas were interviewed in the process of data collection using multistage random sampling techniques. The results revealed that rural women played an essential role in the protection, restoration and destruction of natural resources. Moreover, there was no significant relationship between rural women’s personal characteristics and their activities in utilization of natural resources. This implies that destruction
of natural resources is not attributed to rural women's intentions. However, human basic needs such as searching for a place to live, unpredictable weather conditions, unawareness of conservational facts, financial difficulties, large-sized families, overgrazing, and using woods as fuel were the main reasons for destruction.
خلاصه ماشینی:
In this regard, and in order to attract their cooperative attention, making these groups powerful- as a large section of human work power living in villages- is the main program of development organizations in different countries (ghanian & Zarafshani, 1996).
This paper has evaluated the role of rural women in protection, restoration and destruction issues in natural deserts of Khuzestan province.
Hypothesis of this study were as follows: - Women’s unawareness of the importance, place and role of desert in constant development can influence the women's destructive actions; - Lack of related basic facilities can intensify the women's destructive actions; - There is a relationship between age, job, education and family size of samples and their participation in different activities related to natural resources such as destruction, protection and restoration activities; - There is a significant difference between age, education and family size of women who really like to participate in educational classes on natural resource and those who do not.
● Rural women's lack of knowledge about natural resources and different related programs makes it necessary to establish educational classes with the women as teachers, and to use women in the establishment of protective- restorative activities.
● By doing the above-mentioned methods, women’s literacy and knowledge improves, and becoming educated, they can work in different positions and beings a significant relationship between rural women and natural resource organizations.