Investigating spatial and temporal patterns of illegal livestock grazing in Golestan National Park

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

1 Department of Environmental Sciences, Gorgan University of Agricultural Sciences and Natural Resources, Gorgan, Iran.

2 Department of Environmental Sciences and Engineering, Faculty of Natural Resources, University of Jiroft, Jiroft, Iran.

3 Research Group of Biodiversity and Biosafety, Research Center for Environment and Sustainable Development (RCESD), Department of the Environment, Tehran, Iran.

10.22091/ethc.2024.11558.1038

Abstract

Objective: The increase in the number of domestic livestock worldwide has led to the illegal entry of livestock into protected areas. Illegal livestock grazing is one of the dominant human activities in protected areas and has many direct and indirect effects. This study has identified and prepared a zoning map of the hot spots of illegal livestock violations using ArcGIS software.
Methods: The examination of violation cases in Golestan National Park was done during 2015-2024 and violation points were recorded and based on different tools of spatial statistics, analysis of spatial clustering and areas of violations was done.
Results: Based on the data on the frequency of violations, 4 main areas including Dashteshad, Kuyler, Ghoshe-Ceshmeh and Tangrah have been identified as sensitive and hot areas for Illegal livestock grazing, and it was found that the spread of violations is in the north-south direction, with a concentration in the west of Golestan National Park. Also, the analysis of Z and P values ​​at the 99% confidence level showed that the distribution of phenomena is clustered.
Conclusion: The obtained findings provide valuable insights for planning and formulating violation prevention strategies in Golestan National Park, and based on this, focused activities can be directed towards the Hotspots identified with high violation activity.

Keywords

Main Subjects

References

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