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Undoubtedly, log smuggling is one of the most significant factors in quantitative and qualitative reduction of the Caspian forests in north of Iran, while it has received less attention in forest studies. This study was conducted to identify the causes of log smuggling in Guilan Province, Iran. A team of 24 experts from Forest Protection Department, Natural Resources and Watershed Management Organization, Guilan Province was selected, and the study was carried out in three phases by questionnaire and Delphi method. According to the frequency of responses to the first open-ended question in the first stage of Delphi method, number of 24 various specialists' ideas were identified as the causes of log smuggling. Greed of profiteers, unemployment and the need for income especially among young people, lack of planning in each forest area, poverty in forest communities, easy access to forest areas through forest roads, and closure of forestry plans had the highest frequency among responses. Based on the results from phase two of Delphi method, unemployment and the need for income especially among young people was the notable cause of log smuggling. Systematic corruption, greed of profiteers, poverty in forest communities, failure to deal effectively with log smuggling agents, buying and selling smuggled wood without any trouble are ranked second to sixth, respectively. The Kendall's W test showed no concordance between experts on the questions in relation to the comparison between the ranks among the variables. The results of the tests also showed that the "unemployment and the need for income especially among young people" factor was the first rank, while the "timber industry dependency on certain types of wood" was the last one. The summary of interviewee's opinions after the Kendall's W test illustrated that the most principle log smuggling causes are as follows: unemployment and the need for income especially among young people (94%), systematic corruption (89%), greed of profiteers (86%), and poverty in forest communities (84%), and failure to deal effectively with log smuggling agents (82%). By identifying the factors affecting log smuggling, the necessity of using a strategy to deal with these factors in Guilan Province is felt more than ever. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Unmanaged forests are remnants of natural ecosystems that provide a basis for close-to-nature silvicultural research and applications. These forests have high amounts of dead wood, and although this material is being increasingly studied, the diversity of dead wood in terms of different diameters, decay stages, and spatial distribution patterns is as important as its volume for understanding forest dynamics. Here, we study natural forests in northern Iran to investigate the spatial distribution, decay stages, and volume of dead wood in unmanaged temperate forests at different developmental stages. Three stem-mapped sampling plots (100 m × 100 m) were established in uneven-aged stands dominated by Caspian beech (Fagus orientalis Lispsky). The total dead wood ranged from 37 to 119 m2 ha-1. Our results imply a spatial distribution shift from aggregation to randomness for dead trees in Caspian beech forest succession. We detected significant spatial interactions (attraction) between living and dead trees at short to medium spatial scales (1-20 m) in the plot with the earlier successional stage, suggesting that intra-specific competition is a prevailing force causing tree mortality at the stem-exclusion phase. By contrast, as trees become dominant with the mortality of other trees, the random tree-mortality pattern prevails. The spatial distribution and volume of dead wood may serve as a management target in near-to-natural Caspian beech forest. On the basis of our results, conservation-oriented management strategies should take into account the increasing amount of dead wood, particularly of large diameter in a late stage of decay. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]