Changes in the working conditions of forest chiefs over 15 years in a Turkish Regional Forest Directorate

Abstract

Worldwide, public forest institutions play critical roles in achieving forest management targets such as developing forest policy, intervention planning, sustainable management, facilitating public access and recreation, and monitoring forest conditions.The efficiency in maintaining these functions interacts with the working conditions in public forest institutions, especially at a local level. In Turkey, almost all forest areas have public ownership and are managed by the public forest agency. Forest Chief Units (FCU) are the smallest organizational units and forest chiefs (FC) work as land managers.This study compared the working conditions of FCs over a 15-year period. Questionnaires were given to FCs working in Regional Forest Directorate (RFD) of Istanbul in 2002 and again in 2017. I managed to get responses from the almost entire population of FCs in both surveys. The questionaire revealed an improvement in occupational equipment, technology, and communication opportunities. On the other hand, there was no significant improvement in conditions related to workload, working hours, distribution of work, organizational units, and aspects of administration including participation in decision-making, coordination, and delegation. The results further revealed that political bodies induced the highest level of pressure on working conditions of FCs in both 2002 and 2017. Over 15 years no significant improvement in working conditions of FCs at the local level was achieved, except for some physical working conditions. The results of this study could support decision-making towards job satisfaction and improving working conditions, especially for publicly managed forests.