Promoting safe and pro-environmental behaviors for sustainable forest management: Integrating technology acceptance model and the norm activation model

In recent decades, Iran's forest resources have faced severe threats due to overexploitation. This study aims to identify key factors influencing stakeholders' intentions to adopt forest conservation behaviors, utilizing a hybrid framework that combines the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) and the Norm Activation Model (NAM). A survey-based methodology, supported by a questionnaire and analyzed using Structural Equation Modeling (SEM), was employed. The study focused on rural households living in or near the Arasbaran forests of northwestern Iran. Results indicate that the integration of TAM and NAM provides valuable insights into sustainable forest management by addressing both functional and normative motivations. The proposed framework explained 66.4 % of the variance in rural households' intentions to engage in conservation behaviors. Notably, awareness of the consequences of forest conservation emerged as the most significant predictor. These findings suggest that policymakers should prioritize raising awareness about the impacts of forest preservation to foster environmentally responsible behavior and mitigate resource depletion.