**3.3 Hypotheses testing**

As described in section 2.3.3, the null and alternative hypotheses are associated to similar or different perceptions between stakeholders. The results show that the null hypothesis cannot be rejected for any of the pairs of experts and local populations (all p-values > 0, 05). Thus, the local populations have different perceptions of what they consider to be important ecological elements for a SFM compared to national and province experts, as well as local authorities represented by the district workshop. The *p*-value is at the limit of significance (0, 055) for the national and district workshops compared to the village Ban Bac 4. This is in accordance with the cluster dendrogram results (Fig. 6).

There are similar perceptions about SFM among villages, irrespective of the forest use type they manage (all p-values are < 0, 006) (Fig. 6).
