Socio-economic analysis of fuelwood use in a rural area of Turkey

The present article is based on the socio-economic analysis of fuelwood use in 70 villages in Trabzon, Turkey. Energy requirements of the 70 villages studied are subsidized considerably by the surrounding forest in the form of firewood. It was noticed that the amount of fuelwood consumption in the 70 villages was 171 371 m(3) in 1990. The total amount of fuelwood per house provided by the forest enterprise was 12 212 m(3) in the same year and, therefore, the amount of illegal fuelwood consumption was 159 160 m(3) This study showed that the amount of fuelwood provided by the forest enterprise for each house in the villages was only 7% of the amount of fuelwood the villages used up. Finally, the economic, social, cultural, legal, technical, managerial and psychological reasons for the illegal fuelwood consumption fi om the State Forests have been studied and necessary and appropriate solutions have been proposed.