9 Environmental & Socio-economic Studies © 2016 Copyright by University of Silesia DOI: 10.1515/environ-2016-0007 Environ. Socio.-econ. Stud., 2016, 4, 2: 9-16 ________________________________________________________________________________________________ Original article A socio-economic evaluation of a protected area - A case study: Hamadan province, Iran Haniyeh Moradpanah 1 , Mohammad Dehdar Dargahi 2 , Soleiman Mohammadi Limaei* 3 , Monireh Moradpanah 4 1 Islamic Azad University, Lahijan Branch, Lahijan, Iran 2 Department of Environment, Islamic Azad University, Lahijan Branch, Lahijan, Iran 3 Deptartment of Forestry, Faculty of Natural Resources, University of Guilan, Sowmeh Sara, Iran 4 Faculty of Environment and Energy, Islamic Azad University, Science and Research Branch, Tehran, Iran E–mail address (*corresponding author): limaei@guilan.ac.ir _______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ ABSTRACT The aim of this study was to investigate the socio-economic issues of a protected area and participation of the local stakeholders in conservation of the protected area. This study was conducted at 7 villages in Hamedan province in the midwest part of Iran. A questionnaire was used for data collection. Reliability of the data was determined by Cronbach's alpha. In order to investigate the relationship between the average incomes of different villages, a t-statistic test was used. Results indicated that at the 0.05 significance level, there were significant differences between most villages. Furthermore, the results indicated that there was no significant relationship between mean income of Jara and Saadat Abad villages. In order to investigate the interest for the preservation of different villages, a t-statistic test was used. Results indicated that at the 0.05 significance level of, there were significant differences between Shademaneh and Maloosan, Siyah Dare and Gheshlagh Najaf, Shademaneh and Taemeh, Taemeh and Gheshlagh Najaf villages. Results also showed that the Maloosan village has the highest income in the area and willingness to participate in conservation activities was highest at this village. The results of this study show a new approach to the protection of biodiversity of protected areas with connection to economic, biological and humanistic studies. KEY WORDS: protected area, local stakeholders, Morgan test, socio-economic evaluation ARTICLE HISTORY: received 28 January 2016; received in revised form 11 March 2016; accepted 17 May 2016 ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ 1. Introduction Human usage of natural resources can sustain or destroy ecosystem capacity. At the 1992 Earth Summit, the governments of the world agreed on a new agenda for sustainable development. This agenda included a bold new Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) which, inter alia, called on governments to establish systems of protected areas and to manage these in support of conservation, sustainable use and equitable benefit sharing. Governments recognized protected areas as economic institutions which have a key role to play in the alleviation of poverty and the maintenance of the global community’s critical life-support systems. This new vision for protected areas requires an awareness and an understanding of the economic values generated by protected areas (PHILIPS, 1998). Recently, due to the increase in resource degradation in Iran, the authorities are seeking to protect undisturbed or less disturbed nature zones. However the selection of these protected areas was initially based on the context of land use planning, but there were conscious efforts to protect the last remains of biodiversity in order to be able to keep their natural features in the current unstable development process (MAJNOUNIAN, 2002). Common source and competition for goods and services as well as weak enforcement of laws governing their use may lead to resource degradation (MUTENJE ET AL., 2011).