Protected areas (PAs) are considered one of the most important ecotourism destinations in terms of biodiversity and having abundant capabilities and attractions. Since ecotourism activities do not always lead to economic benefits and environmental development, it is necessary to investigate the negative impacts of ecotourism activities in these areas. For this purpose, in this study, the Delphi method and SWOT-ANP model were used to investigate the negative impacts of ecotourism activities on the four types of PAs of Tehran province and provide optimal strategies. According to the results, the highest mean negative impacts of ecotourism in Lar National Park include unplanned development of ecotourism activities, reduction of dense pastures due to bush cutting, trampling, and lack of adequate monitoring, and in the Jajrud protected area, the trend of land use/cover changes, due to the development of ecotourism infrastructures and the increase in the demand of urban communities for the development of recreational activities. In the Tangeh Vashi National Natural Monument, the most negative impacts include the increase in environmental pollution due to the high number of ecotourists compared to the area's size and facilities, and finally, in the Kavde Wildlife Refuge, the highest mean is allocated to the increase in illegal hunting of wildlife due to the lack of monitoring mechanisms. In the following, to control these impacts, optimal strategies were selected by examining the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats based on the expert's viewpoint, which include offensive-competitive strategy (SO) in Lar Park, defensive strategy (WT)  in Jajrud area and the diversification strategy (ST) due to TangehVashi, and Kavdeh refuge, which should be considered by managers in planning and decision-making.

Using species richness, Shannon-Wiener diversity and Simpson indices, diversity of woody species in protected and non protected areas of Arasbaran forests were studied and compared in this research. Two forest stands with similar floristic and physiognomic situation were selected by using of aerial photographs of 1968 with 1:20000 scale. Then tree species were recorded in 92 transects, each with 30 meter lengths, which was established in 150×300 m grid in the forest stands of the protected area and in a similar way in the non protected area. For data analysis, the means of different diversity indices were calculated and t-test was used to test all indices means differences in the studied areas. Results showed that species richness, evenness and plant diversity indices were significantly increased in the protected area. One can conclude that preservation-based management caused increasing of the woody plant diversity in Arasbaran forests. Therefore, preventing against livestock grazing in the forest stands and uncontrolled tree cutting in the destroyed forest stands could be introduced as a suitable approach for natural restoration and increasing of plant diversity

In this research, forest stands of the two protected and non protected areas of Arasbaran forest region are studied and qualitative factors are compared. For this purpose, the similarity of this stands were studied using aerial photographs taken in 1968 with 1: 20000 scale and similar stands were selected. Then, qualitative specifications of forest stands in 92 line samples (transect) in non-protected area with the statistical network size 150 m × 300 m size were chosen and were compared to specifications of 92 line samples (the correspondent statistical network). The two sites were compared in terms of qualitative characteristics, including percentage of species composition, percentages of height or coppice, percentages of vertical or non-vertical trees, percentages of curved and non-curved trees. Finally it is found that percentages of Carpinus and Querqus composition have significant differences in two forest stands. Also the percentages of coppice and vertical trees in these two areas showed significant differences.

In recent years, several factors have caused the unsustainability of the protected areas in the country, among which we can mention things such as the interference of various institutions in the management of these areas, excessive tourism, unprincipled grazing, destruction of habitats, etc. Oshtoran-kuh Protected Area is among the mentioned areas that due to the lack of sufficient supervision, low efficiency of local projects, lack of detailed planning for the protection of natural areas, economic and livelihood problems of local communities, exploitation of mines, The weak participation of local communities and the like is facing unsustainability in various dimensions. In the current research, an attempt has been made to realization the sustainable development of Oshtoran- kuh protected area by using the good governance approach. The research method is based on the causal method. Documentary and survey methods have been used in data collection. For this purpose, a questionnaire was used to collect the data required for the research. The reliability of the data obtained from the questionnaire was done by calculating Cronbach's alpha. data analysis was done based on quantitative methods (Descriptive and inferential statistical tests). For this purpose, the average, standard deviation, and coefficient of variation of each of the research variables have been investigated for the comparative investigation of the research dimensions. The Kolmogorove-Smirnov test was used to check the normality of the data, and the Somers’d test was used to check the correlation of the data. The territory of the research is Oshtoran-kuh protected area, which is located in Lorestan province. The findings show that the status of governance in the studied area is weak and the degree of sustainability is in the medium level based on the Likert scale. The product of sustainability shows the appropriate state of the socio-cultural dimension and the average state of other dimensions. The findings of the research indicate the existence of a relatively direct relationship between the good governance approach and sustainable development in the studied area.

In this study, species diversity in two protected and non- protected areas in Nave Asalem in North of Iran were compared in richness index and Evenness and to do this study, two protected and non-protected were selected because of having similar species combination and physiography. Systematic Random statistical method was done with the statistical web 100×100m and sample 7 for Analytic data, different tree index was calculated in each sample parcel and five significant experiment of the difference between mean indexes in two statistical experiments was used.The results show that this is a significance between used mean indexes only the species diversity N2 hill in two protected and non-protected areas.

Planning and strategic management is one of the most important feature of management system in an organization.Strategic management is a mixture of art and science, which has multifunction duties for making decision and will give the power to organization in order to achieve its targets.Keeping the environment safe has caught views of many people and institutions in recent decades worldwide. Human’s unrestricted economic activities and communities’ dependency on nature to make living, have decreased habitats’ and ecosystems’ diversity and threaten wild life. Effective and appropriate use of "Planning and strategic management" of Mand protected area by using SWOT(Strengths & Weaknesses , Opportunities & Threats) methods, and QSPM (Quantities Strategic Planning Matrix) as measuring functional indicatives in Planning and strategic management were the goal of this study.According to results taken from analysis at MOND protected area in- BUSHIHR Province, grading resulted as 4.75, 5.45, and 6.05. So, the strategy of using protective approaches won the first grade as priority plan for the area.

Landscape parameters influencing species diversity and richness are important factors for selecting and designing parks and protected areas. The current study investigates the influence of area size and shape on mammal species richness and diversity of six Kohgiluyeh & Boyer Ahmad Protected Areas including, Dena, Khayyz and Sorkh, Eastern Dena, Khamyn, Daele and Solak. Overall 20 mammal species were recorded in the region. The maximum values of species diversity (1. 64) and richness (19. 65) belonged to Dena Protected Area and the minimum values of species diversity (0. 79) and richness (9. 45) obtained for Solak Protected Area. Linear regression analysis revealed the positive effect of area and negative effect of shape (the ratio of perimeter to area) on mammal species richness and diversity. Due to the increasing habitat destructions which has restricted the conservation of biodiversity to protected areas, it is necessary to prevent further reduction of perimeter to area ratio with an effort to increase area size. This might help to better manage and protect the biodiversity of Kohgiluyeh & Boyer Ahmad province.

Introduction and Objective: Protected areas (PAs) are considered as the main tool to protect biodiversity worldwide. However, due to the insufficient facilities and equipment, in practice, many PAs fail to achieve their basic conservation goals. Therefore, evaluating and ensuring the effectiveness of PAs to protect biodiversity, especially in biodiversity hotspots, and for their longterm conservation and management. The Hyrcanian forest is one of the ancient deciduous temperate and pristine forests in Northern Hemisphere, is listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site due to its unique diversity of flora and fauna. However, due to the expansion of human development, these forests is threatened by various human activities. Then, assessing human threats is of paramount for better implementation of management policies in the region. Material and Methods: We obtained red deer (Cervus elaphus maral) census data from the Iranian Department of Environment. We also conducted direct interviews with rangers across PAs in the study area. Moreover, we extracted land use change data (i. e., forest cover and cropland) for two decades (1989-2018). We applied a generalized linear model to analyse our data and selected our best models based on Quasi-Akaike Information Criterion corrected for small sample size (QAICc) approach. Results: Our results show that the forest cover and cropland in two time points (years 1988 and 2018) across PAs did not significantly differ. Our results further showed that ~ 747 individual maral (95% CI = 604-980) were counted across 21 regions, indicating a decline of 59% compared to 1988 across PAs. These results show that positive and significant impact rengers on the abundance and population structure of red deer (β,= 0. 26, 95%, CI ( 0. 15-0. 38), Relative importance =1), On the other hand, the results indicate that protected areas with good yields have a significant contribution to maintaining biodiversity in the Hyrcanian forests. Conclusion: In line with the studies, it is suggested that protected areas focus on security for the presence of species and try to improve habitat conditions for valuable species by increasing the enforcement of laws.

As a major threat to biodiversity، habitat fragmentation has increased the local extinction of species due to a function of inbreeding and demographic stochastic factors. Creating or maintaining of corridors among core areas of protected areas decreases the negative impacts of fragmented habitat. This study attempts to prioritize wildlife linkage areas among current protected areas of East Azerbaijan based on the biological importance and threat-opportunity. The prioritization process was done through assembling stakeholders’ opinions. Then، for the highest priority linkage، the focal species that are sensitive to habitat loss and fragmentation were determined based on the ideas of environmental officials. The distribution maps of focal species (Persian leopard، lynx، ibex، wild sheep، and two reptile species) were modeled based on four different modelling techniques: GLM، MARS، MaxEnt، and RF using species presences. Although all of the individual models showed good overall prediction accuracy for Persian leopard and ibex; MaxEnt and RF models indicated a good discrimination ability for wild sheep and only RF for lynx. However، no models had good prediction accuracy for reptiles (Coluber and Vipera; AUC < 0. 7). Models with good discriminate accuracy are finally summarized in an ensemble forecasting approach to estimate the distribution of suitable habitats for the species of interest. To identify potential routes among the protected areas، GIS methods we used (CorridorDesigner package) to identify a biologically best corridor for each focal species to move among these protected blocks. The findings of the present study indicated that making corridors among Marakan-Kiamaky protected areas is the first priority that is followed by identification of corridors between Dizmar-Kiamaky linkage. The delineated corridors for the highest priority linkage were consistent with field observations of Tabriz environmental officials from animal movements gathered for several years.