Woody Species Diversity, Regeneration, Uses and Soil organic Carbon in Semi Forest Coffee and Natural Forest: The case of Belete Gera Forest Priority Area, Southwest Ethiopia

Abstract

A coffee agroforest has been promoted as means of preserving biodiversity in the tropics. Therefore, this study was conducted on diversity, regeneration, usage of woody species and soil organic carbon under SFC and natural forest of Belete forest priority area, south west, Ethiopia. To conduct the study, 60 plots (30 from natural forest and 30 from semi forest coffee) samples were taken using simple random sampling methods. And a total of 60 soil samples were collected from the two site and SOC, soil texture, bulk density and pH were analyzed. Household survey was conducted to collect woody species usage under natural forest and SFC. A total of 120 households (60 households for each sites) were randomly selected for the interview on usage of woody species through semi-structured interviews. The vegetation data was analyzed for woody species diversity, Importance value index, similarity coefficient, density and basal Area, regeneration and usage parameters. A total of 47 woody species were recorded belonging to 24 families in natural forest and 34 woody species belonging to 17 families in SFC were identified and recorded. Although more woody species were recorded under the natural forest, the difference was not statistically significant (p>0.05).The difference in species richness and Shannon diversity index of woody species between natural forest and semi forest coffee were also not statistically significant (p>0.05). Regeneration status of seedling and sapling of woody species had showed significant (P<0.05) differences between the natural forest and semi forest coffee. However, there was no statistically significant difference (p > 0.05) between the natural forest and semi forest coffee interms of tree density. The conservation practices and usage of woody species under the natural forest and semi forest coffee are the same. It was observed that tree species diversity and Household (HH) dependency on coffee production increased with the closeness of the adjacent natural forest. Soil carbon was analyzed in laboratory. The SOC under the native forest was 51.35 ± 0.11and 50.64 ± 0.08 under the semi forest coffee. Native forest and semi forest coffee had no significant difference by its SOC. It is concluded that woody species management practices in the study area of semi-forest coffee farms more or less the same to the adjacent natural forest. So semi-forest coffee has to be promoted as the main land use system in minimizing woody species loss with continuous monitoring of the forest area