Abstract
Increased recognition of forest fragments as integral components of multi-functional landscape mosaics creates opportunity to broaden approaches to forest management in rural spaces that make essential contributions to rural economies and biodiversity conservation. This research compares forest inventories from 1969, 1979, and 2010 of a 1,209 ha Afromontane forest area in highland Ethiopia in order to describe changing conditions over time and inform contemporary management practices. This approach integrates historical information with a contemporary forest assessment conducted by the authors and includes a discussion of the challenges associated with doing so. This topic is of global relevance because many programs including REDD+ and the Clean Development Mechanism require descriptions of historical conditions including forest cover and composition despite the fact that for many countries such data are patchy at best. Early successional deciduous pioneer species in the study area including Maesa lanceolata and Croton macrostachyus are increasing in importance as measured by relative frequency, dominance and density, while late successional species including Podocarpus falcatus, Juniperus excelsa, Hagenia abyssinica and Prunus africana are declining in importance. The growing interest in managing forests as multi-functional landscape mosaics, where livelihood concerns are integrated with conservation values, means that assessments such as this can serve to inform management strategies aimed at delivery of multiple forest benefits.
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Notes
This 3 cm diameter cutoff was used (as opposed to a 10 cm cutoff) to capture additional information about regeneration dynamics.
Peluso and Ribot (2003) distinguished between natural resource access rights that are “socially acknowledged and supported” as opposed to those sanctioned under law.
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Acknowledgments
The authors thank two local field assistants, the helpful staff at the Forest Enterprise Office and faculty at the Wondo Genet College of Forestry, and the hospitable people of Ashoka, Lepis and Gambo. We thank the two anonymous reviewers and journal editor, whose helpful comments greatly improved this paper. We gratefully acknowledge funding from the Sasakawa Foundation and the Future Agricultures Consortium.
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Guillozet, K., Bliss, J.C. & Kelecha, T.S. Degradation in an Afromontane Forest in Highland Ethiopia, 1969–2010. Small-scale Forestry 14, 121–137 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11842-014-9277-3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11842-014-9277-3