The vegetation of Dena Protected Area has been utilized by local communities for many years, and this has had a great impact on the biodiversity and survival of this valuable area. Remote sensing technology is one of the new technologies that can monitor changes in land surface covers and show changes in forest areas well. Therefore, the present study aims to assess the changes in vegetation cover of Dena Protected Area using remote sensing during the years 2001 to 2021. For this purpose, Landsat satellite images and the maximum similarity supervised classification algorithm were used to study the changes in vegetation cover of 9 selected villages in Dena Protected Area. ENVI 5.3 software was used to analyze the satellite images, and ARC GIS 10.5 was used to prepare the maps. The results showed that over time, the area of ​​forest and rangeland cover in the 9 villages studied in the Dena Protected Area has decreased, except for Hosseinkhani village (increase in forest and rangeland cover by 1.96 hectares), while the area of ​​garden, agricultural and residential lands has increased in all villages, and the two villages of Hosseinkhani and Totandeh has decreased by 4.78 and 4.59 hectares, respectively. Among the 9 villages studied, Rudabad village has faced the most destruction, with 141.26 hectares of rangelands and forest areas around this village having decreased, and 129.93 hectares of garden and agricultural lands having increased. According to the results of this study, the expansion of agricultural and garden lands is an important factor in the destruction of forest and pasture covers around villagers. Accordingly, authorities need to pay attention to the rural household economy, and it is recommended that solutions should be provided to stabilize the livelihoods of rural households or that protection plans should be strengthened in these areas to prevent excessive utilization of forests and destruction.