The Urgent Issue of Conservation of Forest in Ethiopia
The global environment is always in a dynamic state of change because of natural and anthropogenic activities. In this dynamic process, land is the major focus among all forms of natural and human-induced. These changes might have either a negative or a positive impact on the physical, chemical and biological components of land resources. Various studies have reported that many forests have been manipulated by anthropogenic activities. The depletion of forest resources could lead locally to negative environmental, socio-economic, political and cultural. For example, the degradation or loss of forest resources has a direct consequence on ecosystem services, loss of biodiversity, climate change, soil erosion, land degradation, flooding and sedimentation of water resources, shortage of forest products, food insecurity and poverty. The degradation of forests in many parts of the world by the cause of poor management system is the considerable issue. The changes in forest cover are significant and vary over time and from country to country, region to region. For example, global deforestation was 129 million hectares between 1990 and 2015. In this period, the highest percentage of annual forest loss was in Africa (Nigeria 4.5%, Zimbabwe 2.0%), followed by Latin America (Paraguay 1.9%) and Asia (Myanmar 1.7%). This indicates that the problem of deforestation and degradation is more severe in the tropics, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa. Similar to other sub-Saharan African countries, Ethiopia has also undergone severe forest cover change, losing 17.3% (2.6 million ha) of forest cover at an annual rate of 0.8% between 1990 and 2015.
Although the changes address all of Ethiopia, the highlands are the most vulnerable areas due to the fragile nature of the landscape, torrential nature of rainfall, a long history of settlement, rapid population growth, and subsequent long term trend of free grazing practices together with reliance on rainfed subsistence farming and dependency on biomass energy use.
Resources that are abundant once may change to other forms or be degraded or even depleted. Natural resources such as wildlife and forests were abundant on the earth and there were no concern about wise use of such moments. As human population continues growing rapidly, resources are becoming scares. Obviously, these resources are changed or exhausted unless wisely used. In order to mitigate the scarcity or complete loss, mankind has started to become concerned about conserving natural resources, of which one is forest resource.
Forest is one of the most essential kinds of resources that human beings and other animals depend on. It regulates environmental and ecological changes in which soil, water climate and rainfall are in good existence in sustainable condition. Apart from its intrinsic value for many indigenous and other forest-dependent people, forests are their livelihood. Forests provide them with edible and medicinal plants, bush meat, fruits, honey, shelter, firewood and many other goods, as well as with cultural and spiritual values. Whether it is private or public property, forest is the nationally and globally mutual treasure. The value of forest resources to the world’s human population is becoming increasingly evident.
The presence of forest in Ethiopia is relevant at several levels. Socially and economically speaking, forests are a traditional resource for local communities as a source for fuel wood and construction wood. In addition, it is used for commercialization of non-timber product in some local market. Moreover, they represent pasture for domestic grazers. Ecologically, forests are essential for the whole Ethiopian ecosystem, because they prevent the loss of fertile soil top layers. Damages are already visible in deforested part where the poor soil considerably reduce agricultural performance and hinder reforestation possibility for the future.
However, human interference, mainly for subsistence and economic reasons, is the most important reason for fast depletion and serious degradation of natural forest in Ethiopia. The conventional, futile and unsuccessful protection and guarding of state forests by employed guards is quite unsuccessful but attempts to improve the situation are made by empowering and shifting the responsibility to the community level. With a number of factors for deforestation and decline or loss of biodiversity, the problem is evident in the northern Ethiopia where forests are downscaled to few protected areas especially the Orthodox Tewahdo Church compounds. To this end, very little of the natural forest and wild animals remains today.
In conclusion, these all are the results of a long-term human occupation of the area, accompanied by sedentary agriculture and extensive cattle husbandry exploitation of the biodiversity. For this reason, the government made different efforts in various sectors of biodiversity conservation. To overcome problems in biodiversity loss, the ministry of agriculture in collaboration with different national and international organizations is working to implement agro forestry and community tree planting programs for the last three decades. However, yet, the challenges of minimizing the rate of deforestation, due to lack of appropriate technologies to improve conservation practices, and imbalance between the forest resource and the demand of the ever increasing population of the country, remain unsolved.
