The Species Diversity and Management of Woody Species In Agricultural Landscape In Dedo District, Jimma Zone, Southwest Ethiopia

Abstract

Woody species conservation is an issue of scientific, economic, ecological and political concern at global level. Farmlands play significant role in the woody species conservation. This study was, conducted to investigate species diversity and traditional woody species management practices on farmlands in De do district, Jimma zone, South West Ethiopia. Woody species on farmlands were assessed in three study sites list and direct counting- method was used. In crop field, vegetation data were collected from54plots with an area (50 m × 100 m) sample size quadrats. The first transect line and plot was set purposely. The distance between two transect line was 1km and between two quadrat was 300 meters. In each plot Diameter at Breast Height (DBH) was measured for all woody plant species with tree height ≥ 3m and DBH ≥ 5cm. Woody species data include tree species; density, richness, basal area, frequency, importance value index and traditional management practices on farmland at different study sites. While stratified random sampling and simple random sampling were used to select sample households within wealth status categories. From three random selected sites 128 households were selected for formal and informal interview data collection. The result shows that 21 woody species belonging to 16 families were Identified and recorded. The average Number of individuals species per plot was 2.5 recorded in the study area. The Shannon diversity index and Shannon evenness of woody species on farmland were 2.35 and 0.48 respectively. The average basal area of woody species on farmland in study area was 2.71m 2 . The socioeconomic factors like farmland size, educational background, and wealth status had significant influence on the management of woody species diversity on farmland across the study sites. The local farmers retain and planted the woody species based on their ability to enhance source of income, soil fertility, timber, fuel-wood, fodder and housing materials. The most preferred species by respondents were Cordia africana, Catha edulis, and Persea amercana. Therefore, based on this study it can be concluded that farmers have traditional management practices to wood species on their farmland but this practice has not been supported well by extension to solve the problem.