Woody Species and Socioeconomics Contribution of Forest Under Participatory Forest Management a Case from Belete Forest Southwest Ethiopia

Abstract

There has been a paradigm shift concerning forest management strategy from state centered approach to local people participation in Ethiopia. The study was designed to assess forest under participatory forest management system on their status and socioeconomics contribution to rural people. From both forest blocks, two forest fragments were randomly selected of which woody plant data were collected. The main plots of 20m x 20m and nested plots10m x 10m, 1m x 1m were laid systematically on parallel transect line. The nested subplots were established within the main quadrates. From each main plot and nested plot of 10mx10m woody plant species were counted, diameter at breast height (DBH) and height of trees and shrubs were measured. Seedlings of tree and shrub species were counted in 1mx1m-nested plots. Household survey and key informant interview was conducted to generate information on socioeconomics contribution of forest resource to rural people. Mean comparison using one sample as well as independent sample t-test and regression analysis were used to evaluate differences between the two forest blocks, and contribution of forest incomes. Fifty-five and 45 species were identified in forest without coffea and with coffea respectively. The density and basal area of woody vegetation per hectare were 17500 individuals’ stems, 19.9 m2 and 10791 individuals’ stems, 18.7 m2 in both forest blocks respectively. The overall Shannon diversity and evenness index of the forest without coffea was 2.98 and 0.74 while 2.13 and 0.56 for the forest managed for coffea. The result showed that the two forest blocks had variation in species composition, stem density, importance value index (IVI), diversity and evenness indexes. These diversity value revealed that forests managed for coffea were the most disturbed and the woody species composition has shown declining trend. There was difference between the two forests in stem density at sapling stage (t=19.134, p=0.035), and number of species at seedling stage (t=21.5, p=0.030). However, no statistical variation at seedling and mature tree level in stem density and at sapling and mature tree in species availability. Forest resource has a lot contribution to both forest users for home uses and as sources of cash income by selling produces of forest coffea, spices, and honey. The finding showed forest users had significant variation on income derived from forest coffea (p= 0.000). However, they had no significant variation in terms of income derived from honey (p=0.451) and spices (p=0.067). Similarly, the independent sample t-test revealed existence of very significant difference between the two forest users in total income from forests. Therefore, the forest with coffee needs some protective mechanism to improve woody species availability inside the forest, but the forest user without coffee should increased their forest income sources from the forest through maximizing outputs of non timber forest products.