Abstract:
Forests have enormous ecological, economical and socio-cultural significances. Forests
constitute critical habitat for humanity, providing a range of ecological and environmental
services including biodiversity, sequestration of carbon, provisioning of fresh air, renewal
of soil fertility, and maintenance of hydrological cycles The East African forests are a home
to the tallest tree in Africa and they are also act as water towers, regulating and providing
water for the lowlands. The forest resources in Ethiopia have been continuously declining.
Significantly and steadily both in size and quality. Therefore, this study was conducted to
assess the practices and challenges of conservation and management of Komto forest.
Descriptive research design has been used for the study. The investigation was carried out on
225 households taken systematically from the total households of the two local kebeles. Data
were collected using from questionnaire, interview and personal observation in order to
understand the practices and challenges of conservation and management towards forests
resource in the study area. The collected data was coded, organized, tabulated, analyzed and
discussed. The findings of the study indicated that Komto forest was affected by high rate of
deforestation. I.e. Settlement, agricultural activities, cutting of trees for wood, Charcoal,
Furniture, and Construction purposes. The majority of respondents 157(70%) agreed and
63(28%) of the respondents strongly agreed that the forest resource of the study area was
exposed to high rate of deforestation only 5(2%) of the respondents have no opinion and
towards this issue. The consequences of this deforestation pose problems in the study area
and the rest part of the country. That the identification and demarcation of existing natural
forests the local communities strongly agreed that maximizes the rate of conservation of the
forest in the area. The absence of forest administration and lack of continues environmental
education highly contributed to minimize the current forest resource degradation in the
kebeles. The idea of forest conservation activities in the local area lacks of cooperation and
coordination among different stake holders, local people play an important role in the
maintenance of forest resources. Depending on a number of historical, social and ecological
factors, an indigenous community has an extraordinary role in the management of forest and
utilizes it sustainably.
