AN ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION OF Kathleen Guillozet for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Forest Resources presented on August 8, 2011. Title: Livelihoods and Land Use Change in Highland Ethiopia Abstract approved: ________________________________________________________________ John C. Bliss Abstract: This dissertation investigates livelihood and land use change dynamics in a community at the farm-forest periphery in highland Ethiopia. I use interviews and livelihood assessment data to compare the strategies used by members of different wealth groups to negotiate and maintain access to forest resources, and integrate socioeconomic, bio-physical and spatially explicit data to examine changing land use and household vulnerability. This approach sheds new light on scalar aspects of poverty-environment relationships with implications for environmental justice and rural development policy. Chapter one provides an overview of the context and approach to this research. Chapter two illustrates the importance of scale in understanding household vulnerability. It uses diverse data to describe political, historic, biophysical and economic factors that shape vulnerability. Chapter three describes household livelihoods and increasing foreign investment pressure in Ethiopia’s natural forests, with an emphasis on the history of forest management and access in the study site. It describes processes of forest boundary making and conflict in the study area. Chapter four outlines two scenarios to describe the amount of agricultural land required to replace forest incomes in the community under study. These scenarios, termed “fuelwood replacement” and “fuelwood replacement with agricultural intensification,” use agricultural land as a proxy for fuelwood incomes, retaining the connection to physical space that is inherent to natural resources, rather than presenting abstracted monetary values that disassociate resources from power and access dynamics. Chapter five draws together unifying ideas, outlines policy recommendations and describes areas for future research. ©Copyright by Kathleen Guillozet August 8, 2011 All Rights Reserved Livelihoods and Land Use Change in Highland Ethiopia by Kathleen Guillozet A DISSERTATION submitted to Oregon State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Presented August 8, 2011 Commencement June 2012 Doctor of Philosophy dissertation of Kathleen Guillozet presented on August 8, 2011. APPROVED: _____________________________________________________________________ Major Professor, representing Forest Resources _____________________________________________________________________ Head of the Department of Forest Engineering and Resource Management _____________________________________________________________________ Dean of the Graduate School I understand that my dissertation will become part of the permanent collection of Oregon State University libraries. My signature below authorizes release of my dissertation to any reader upon request. _____________________________________________________________________ Kathleen Guillozet, Author ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I thank my husband Peter for his encouragement, assistance, companionship and advice through every phase of this work. I am grateful to my family for their constant support and enthusiasm. Thanks to friends who offered welcome breaks over the past four years, especially to Janet and Steve for their incredible generosity when a short stopover became a long one. I thank my advisor John Bliss for his incredible mentorship. His wisdom, humor and patience made my work enjoyable from start to finish. I learned so much in the last four years, most through John’s teaching. I am grateful to Sunil Khanna for sharing his insights on household research and for his generous assistance with household surveys and statistics. I thank Larry Becker for his advice concerning field research and for the great discussions on decentralization and farm forest livelihoods. I hope to continue this work. I thank Badege Bishaw for facilitating contacts with the Wondo Genet College of Forestry. Thanks to Stella Coakley, who was a wonderful Graduate Representative through the first stages of my degree, and to Courtland Smith who took over during my defense. Sincere thanks to Oregon State University faculty who developed and taught the many excellent courses that I took during my studies and who offered advice that helped shape my research. In particular, I thank Jo Albers, Temesgen Hailemaraim, Dave Hibbs, Mike Newton, Robin Rose and Mark Wilson. I also thank the social theory club: Erin Kelly, Jesse Abrams, Sera Janson and Lauren Redmore, for pushing the boundaries of my thinking and my sense of humor. I am forever grateful to friends and colleagues in Ethiopia. I thank everyone at Wondo Genet who welcomed me and Peter to Ethiopia, especially Dr. Melaku Bekele. Thanks to Mamo Kebede for first bringing me to what would become my research site and for offering invaluable advice during the early phases of my stay. Many thanks to Mersha Gebrehiwot for the lovely meals and conversation and to Tewodros Assefa for his friendship. Thanks to everyone at the Forest Enterprise, especially Ato Didha Dirriba for his kindness. Special thanks everyone at the Forest Enterprise office who endured my regular interruptions with grace and good humor. I am indebted to Tiglu Seboka for his generosity of time, insight and assistance. Many thanks to Gemmedi and Gose, who worked long days with me in the forest. Their unending good humor made the hard walking much easier and I thank them for sharing their knowledge and experience. Thanks to Shukuri who was the best translator I could have hoped for. His kindness and patience made the work a pleasure. Warm thanks to Misganu for his friendship and thoughtfulness. I am grateful to the local community members who allowed me to interview them, and also to the Kebele leaders and Ministry of Agriculture who welcomed me. I am continuously awed by the strength and kindness of the people I met. I thank everyone at the Gambo Hospital and Mission who were endlessly generous to me and Peter, especially Abba Renzo and Abba Oscar. I thank the Sisters for the coffee breaks and conversation and to all of the doctors and nurses for their laughter and good work. Thanks to our wonderful neighbors Dalu and family, and to everyone who offered us friendship during our stay. I look forward to seeing you again. I am grateful for the funding that I received in support of my research and studies. I sincerely thank the OUS-SYLFF Graduate Fellowship for International Research, the Starker Program in Private and Family Forestry, the Land Deal Politics Initiative small grants program, the US Department of Education’s Foreign Language Area Studies Fellowship, the College of Forestry, the Richardson Fellowship, the Alfred and Vera Meier Fellowship, the Mary McDonald Fellowship, the Walt A Gruette Fellowship, the Alfred W Moltke Scholarship, the Oregon Lottery Scholarship and the Harris Lab. CONTRIBUTION OF AUTHORS Dr. John C Bliss contributed to the writing of all chapters. TABLE OF CONTENTS Page Chapter 1 - General Introduction ................................................................................... 1 1.1 Livelihoods and Forests: The context for this study ..................................... 5 1.2 Dissertation Structure ................................................................................... 8 1.3 Study Design and Approach .......................................................................... 9 1.4 Site Selection and Community Introduction ............................................... 16 Chapter 2 - Understanding smallholder vulnerability through a multi-scalar perspective ................................................................................................................... 24 2.1 Introduction ................................................................................................ 25 2.2 Background ................................................................................................. 25 2.3 Approach ..................................................................................................... 29 2.4 Findings ....................................................................................................... 32 2.5 Discussion .................................................................................................... 56 Chapter 3 - Household Livelihoods and Increasing Foreign Investment Pressure in Ethiopia’s Natural Forests ............................................................................................ 59 3.1 Introduction ................................................................................................ 60 3.2 Processes driving forest investment in Ethiopia ......................................... 61 3.3 Communities at the Forest-Farm Interface ................................................ 68 3.4 Case Study Evidence .................................................................................... 71 3.5 Community Forest Benefits and the Potential for Conflict ......................... 85 3.6 Discussion .................................................................................................... 91 TABLE OF CONTENTS (continued) Page Chapter 4 - Land Use, Livelihoods and Deforestation: Connecting Case Study Evidence to Global Narratives .....................................................................................