Forest Decline in South Central Ethiopia Extent, History and Process
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Forest Decline in South Central Ethiopia Extent, history and process Gessesse Dessie Department of Physical Geography and Quaternary Geology Stockholm University SE-106 91 Stockholm, Sweden © Gessesse Dessie ISSN: 1653-7211 ISBN: 978-91-7155-454-3 Layout: Clas Hättestrand Printed in Sweden: US-AB, 2007 Cover: Photograph showing Wondo Genet area in the eastern part of the study area. In the foreground smallholder agriculture is seen against the natural forest of the escarpments. Once a closed forest, the area is now agricultural land where annual crops such as maize are grown by smallholder farmers. Landholdings are less than one hectare in size. Whitish cluster in center left is the Wondo Genet College of Forestry. The light green tone at the foothills reveals predominantly khat farms pushing the forest frontier up the escarpment. Photograph by Gessesse Dessie, June 2004 Doctoral dissertation 2007 Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Physical Geography Department of Physical Geography and Quaternary Geology Stockholm University Gessesse Dessie Abstract This study presents the extent, history and process of forest decline in Awassa watershed, south central Ethiopia. By combining different data sources such as satellite images, social surveys and historical documents, forest decline is de- scribed quantitatively and qualitatively and the main causes behind this process are identified. Forest decline in the study area is interpreted as the result of a combination of socio-political changes, economic activities, population growth, cultural patterns and agricultural developments while local conflicts over resour- ces also play an important role. The findings of this study reveal forest decline to be a continuous process associated with spatial fragmentation and location specific losses. The recent increase in production of the cash crop khat has made a significant impact on the forest through several mechanisms: it relocates the agricultural/forest frontier; it causes intrusion and permanent settlement within forests; and fragments remaining forest. The analysis of human-spatial boun- daries indicates unsystematic management of the natural forests by several ad- ministrative units. As a result, multiple claims have been made on the forests simultaneously as weak control and accountability conditions have negatively affected forest management. The main conclusions are as follows: Forest decline in the study area has a long history, spanning at least one century. The causes are identifiable as both temporally spaced individual events as well as chains of events. These interact with each other at different levels and scales as well as with the geographical properties of the study area. Land users’ rationale in weighing the advantages between keeping and replacing the forest is affected by economic gain, market conditions and transport facilities. Multiple claims to the forest land and weak accountability contribute to inefficient management, which accelerates forest decline. Key words: Forest decline, people-forest interaction, boundaries, khat expan- sion, remote sensing, social survey, south central Ethiopia, Awassa watershed, Wondo Genet Forest Decline in South Central Ethiopia Extent, history and process Gessesse Dessie This doctoral thesis consists of a summary and four appended papers. List of Papers Paper I: Gessesse Dessie and Kleman, J. 2007. Pattern and Magnitude of Deforestation in the South Central Rift Valley Region of Ethiopia. Mountain research and development 27(2):162-168. Paper II: Gessesse Dessie and Christiansson, C. 2007. Forest Decline and its Causes in the South Central Rift Valley of Ethiopia. Human Impact over a One Hundred Year Perspective. Ambio (accepted, resubmitted) Paper III: Gessesse Dessie and Kinlund, P. 2007. Khat Expansion and Forest Decline in Wondo Genet, Ethiopia. Geografiska Annaler (in review). Paper IV: Gessesse Dessie and Kleman, J. 2006. Ecological and Human Spatial Boundaries and their Impact on Forest Management and Forest Decline in Wondo Genet, Ethiopia. (Manuscript). In this summary references to the above papers are made by their Roman numbers. The ideas and realization of all papers are entirely my own. All of the fieldwork, development of methods, data collection and analysis for all papers were undertaken by me. The writing part was done jointly with co-authors. They contributed to the discussion of findings and structures of the papers. In paper II and III the co-authors took part in the preliminary field trips. Paper I (uncorrected proof - see attached page for corrections) is presented in this thesis with permission from Journal of Mountain Research and Development. Gessesse Dessie - Forest decline in South Central Ethiopia Introduction decline rather than the causative processes. Therefore the need for a holistic approach is apparent. However, Natural forest is both an ecosystem and a resource: it is important to address the aforementioned chal- as an ecosystem it integrates diverse fauna, flora lenges, particularly the complexity of causative links and the physical environment; as a resource it has in time and space. various economic, ecological and social values. Fo- A more complete understanding of forest decline rest decline (Contreras-Hermosilla 2000) affects the requires 1) a means of determining magnitude and ecosystem as well as the usefulness of the forest as a characteristics with consistent estimation methods 2) resource. It involves multiple and interrelated factors an outline of processes: an intrinsic understanding of of people-forest interaction and results in significant functional chains and causative links 3) a pattern and environmental and social consequences (Lambin et trend analysis which delves beyond contemporary al 2001). snapshot observations 4) an investigation of whether People-forest interaction is determined by the current management/administrative conditions are interaction in space and over time of biophysical contributing to forest decline. and human factors (Moran and Ostrom 2005). A The magnitude of forest decline can be defined as study of such interaction needs to conceptualize the the difference between measurements taken at two relationship between the driving forces of human or more different points in time excluding possible induced changes, the processes and activities among errors (Contreras-Hermosilla 2000). The process them, and human behavior and organization (Turner analysis requires the identification of complex causa- et al 1994). tive links. Some causes imply complex links between Numerous studies have dealt with forest decline people and forest, such as in the case of cash crop issues. Various approaches exist, such as 1) regres- production, which has been shown to initiate links sion analysis of the causes and consequences with less at different scales between environment, people, emphasis on spatial links (e.g. Angelsen 1999); 2) the economy, culture and market (Grossman 1993; spatial representation of causes using a combination Nestel 1995; Govereh & Jayne 2002; Emich 2003; of remote sensing and socioeconomic techniques Keys 2004; Gebissa 2004). Landscape changes may (e.g. Fox et al 2003); 3) the analysis of causes in the occur over timescales longer than those that can be context of the larger political and economic environ- observed directly. Understanding the serial stage (time ment, at a number of temporal and spatial scales (e.g. line) of landscapes is necessary in order to identify Geist and Lambin 2002). While these approaches are more complex chains of causation (Antrop 2005; methodologically diverse, each provides essential per- Roberts 1996; Marcucci 2000: Batterbury and Beb- spectives necessary for the comprehension of tropical bington 1999). Boundaries are important elements forest decline. in the landscape because they institute claims and However, the following points express some of the are a preliminary form of management. Notably the practical, methodological and theoretical challenges human and ecological boundaries often do not match that still remain. and this mismatch and variation of boundaries may • Forest and biophysical variables are relatively over time lead to inefficient, inconsistent, wasteful, or fixed in space, while social variables are often destructive resource management (Meidinger 1998; fluid: they transcend space and time. These fun- Lovell 2002; Walker and Peters 2001; Cadenasso et damental differences in variable "stability" pose al 2003; Cumming 2006). problems of scale and cause identification, as well The problems in the study area are outlined as as problems in outlining functional links. follows: Forest decline occurs, but limited knowledge exists • Since processes involve the interaction of causes with regard to and consequences, activities such as filtering de- • The rate of decline, the spatial pattern and the terminant causes, evaluating the extent of impact, trend over an extended temporal perspective. as well as analyzing more complex causative chains are rendered problematical. • How long it has been in progress, its causes and consequences over time. • Interpretation is often context dependent, i.e. varying interpretations may result from the • Attributable causes in a short temporal per- application of differing human or environmental spective, specifically the impact of smallholder perspectives. This poses the problem of reducing agriculture. complex information to simplified knowledge. • Ecological and human spatial boundaries which In Ethiopia forest decline is identified