PROBLEMS AND PROSPECTS OF FOREST DEGRADATION AROUND UR BAN AREAS: A CASE STUDY ON THE INTERFACE FORESTS OF ARBA MINCH TOWN, SNNPRS, ETHIOPIA

Abstract

This study has been employed to assess the problems and prospects of forest degradation around Arba Minch town. The assessment is necessarily general because it is intended to alarm to the seriousness of the problem. Some environmental situations can enable the community to observe the trend of forests degradation around the town. But it was diffi cult for them to ascertain quantitatively. The findings of this study identified the degra dation quantitatively. Thus, the amount of fuelwood consumed in 2012 was 111,759.57m 3 . As based on this result, the estimated degradation of the coming 20 years of the surrounding forest resources will be more than 6,081.42 hectares. To reach on this the growth of the town population was assessed in three rate of increase (5%, 8.7% and 11.3%). As a result, the estimation for 2032 will reach to 253,446, 633,039 and 1,087,326 people in 5%, 8.7% and 11.3% rate of growth estimation respectively. The finding again classified the vegetation formation of the study area based on the FAO’s 1985 physiognomic classification. Accordingly, the total of the study area (20,298ha) was classified in to GRL forest (1985.4 ha), Woodland (4243.62 ha), Plane Bushes (2,162.13 ha), Escarpment Bushes (3714.8 ha), Bush Grassland (1849.9 ha) and Shrub grassland (1,496.21 ha). The rest of the land was occupied by town settlement, cultivation and swamps. The finding also assessed the contribution of overgrazing to the degradation of forest resources of the study area. It detected that while the carrying capacity of the study area indicated 750TLU, the livestock unit equivalence (the fodder need of animals) was 2,614.6 TLU. An implication of this indicates the possibility that the livestock population of the study area contributes for the degradation. Thus, the study is anticipated to insist the concerned bodies to draw special attention before the problem is getting worst and uncontrollable. In many cases, it is clear that evaluating awareness and attitude is not an easy task and it is also difficult to measure as they are elements of human behavior. The study attempted to assess the responses by using descriptive and non-parametric statis tics. So, almost all respondents sensed for the degradation of the forest resources. But differences were marked between the kebeles of the respondents organized in basis of participatory forest resource management and those which didn’t organize their commu nity.