CHALLENGES AND OPPORTUNITIES IN SUTAIABLE MANAGEMENT AND UTILIZATION OF DRY FOREST RESOURCES OF ETHIOPIA

Abstract

Drylands cover 41.3%, 66%, and 75% of the world, of Africa, and Ethiopia, respectively, encompassing diverse renewable and non-renewable natural resources that have enormous socio-economic and ecological significance. In Ethiopia, dry forests contain diverse timber and non-timber producing tree and shrub species. The most important non-timber forest products in drylands include natural gum-resins, honey and wax, lowland bamboo and edible plant products. Ethiopia is one of the world’s leading producers of gum-resins. Gum and resin bearing species provide an opportunity to integrate economic benefits with desertification control. Frankincense, obtained from Boswellia papyrifera is the main commercialized product, representing more than 80% of the country’s natural gum and resins export in volume and the amount of revenue earned. However, the dry forest resources of Ethiopia are threatened due to accelerated degradation and deforestation due to expansion of agricultural land (subsistence and large scale commercial farming), overgrazing, population growth and ever-growing demand for construction and fuel wood, forest fire, pests and diseases, unsustainable resource utilization. Expansion of agricultural land, population growth due to settlement programs, development activities like road network and hydroelectric dams are reported to have large impact while extraction of wood and other non-timer forest products, forest fire, over grazing, pests and diseases have medium impact. Destruction of dry forest resulted in depletion of important tree species; shortage of wood and non-wood products; biodiversity loss; reduction of agricultural productivity; decrease resilience to climate change; impact wildlife and ecotourism; siltation of reservoir and its impact on energy generation hydropower dams. The relatively higher dry forest resources of the country, Climate Resilient Green Economy strategy, national and international initiatives to rehabilitate degraded lands and combat desertification, incentives embedded in new forest proclamation and others are opportunities to expand and implement the ongoing efforts to rehabilitate, sustainably manage and properly utilize dry forest resources of Ethiopia. Therefore, designing and implementing integrated interventions is necessary to utilize these opportunities and to ensure sustainable management and utilization of dry forests resources.