Supporting Ecotourism through Sustainable Forest Management (SFM)

Abstract

Abstract The conservation, sustainability and poverty alleviation are the main challenges that facing developing countries. To meeting these three issues, it is highly required to involve local community in the decision making process when managing forests or any local resources. This study aims to identify the role of neighborhood communities around Dibeen and Ajloun forests in the forest conservation activities and to how much they believe of ecotourism as a vehicle for management and economic development to make a base for governance approach in that area. The results show no role for local communities in the management process, and the respondents believe that neither local community nor municipalities are capable of managing the forests. However, they think that local communities should be prepared to be involved in managing the forest. The majority agreed on tourism enterprise as the best investment opportunity on these forests