| 1. |
- Ango, Tola Gemechu, et al.
(författare)
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Balancing Ecosystem Services and Disservices : Smallholder Farmers' Use and Management of Forest and Trees in an Agricultural Landscape in Southwestern Ethiopia
- 2014
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Ingår i: Ecology and Society. - 1708-3087. ; 19:1
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Farmers' practices in the management of agricultural landscapes influence biodiversity with implications for livelihoods, ecosystem service provision, and biodiversity conservation. In this study, we examined how smallholding farmers in an agriculture-forest mosaic landscape in southwestern Ethiopia manage trees and forests with regard to a few selected ecosystem services and disservices that they highlighted as beneficial or problematic. Qualitative and quantitative data were collected from six villages, located both near and far from forest, using participatory field mapping and semistructured interviews, tree species inventory, focus group discussions, and observation. The study showed that farmers' management practices, i.e., the planting of trees on field boundaries amid their removal from inside arable fields, preservation of trees in semimanaged forest coffee, maintenance of patches of shade coffee fields in the agricultural landscape, and establishment of woodlots with exotic trees result in a restructuring of the forest-agriculture mosaic. In addition, the strategies farmers employed to mitigate crop damage by wild mammals such as baboons and bush pigs, e. g., migration and allocation of migrants on lands along forests, have contributed to a reduction in forest and tree cover in the agricultural landscape. Because farmers' management practices were overall geared toward mitigating the negative impact of disservices and to augment positive services, we conclude that it is important to operationalize ecosystem processes as both services and disservices in studies related to agricultural landscapes.
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| 2. |
- Ango, Tola Gemechu, 1976-, et al.
(författare)
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Coffee, child labour, and education : Examining a triple social–ecological trade-off in an Afromontane forest landscape
- 2022
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Ingår i: International Journal of Educational Development. - : Elsevier BV. - 0738-0593 .- 1873-4871. ; 95
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- In biodiversity rich agriculture–forest moasic landscapes in south-western Ethiopia, the production of coffee and food crops, including guarding them from forest-dwelling mammals, requires a high input of labour, which is supplied partly by children. Through field observations and interviews with smallholders, we studied the extent of children’s participation in coffee production and food crop guarding, its impact on school attendance and implications for sustainable development. The findings revealed that the extent of children’s participation in such work is correlated with the level of household’s income and residential location, i.e. near versus far from forests or in coffee versus non-coffee areas. Child labour and school absenteeism linked to coffee production and crop guarding are widespread problems. Some of the measures taken to mitigate the problem of school absenteeism were coercive and posed threats to poor households. The paper concludes that child work in coffee production and crop protection is at the cost of school attendance for many children, which represents a critical social justice issue and a trade-off with the economic and environmental values of the forest. Reducing poverty would likely mitigate the problem of child labour and school absenteeism and promote synergistic development in the region.
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| 3. |
- Ango, Tola Gemechu, 1976-, et al.
(författare)
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Crop raiding by wild mammals in Ethiopia : impacts on the livelihoods of smallholders in an agriculture-forest mosaic landscape
- 2017
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Ingår i: Oryx. - 0030-6053 .- 1365-3008. ; 51:3, s. 527-537
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- We assessed the impacts of crop raiding by wild mammals on the livelihoods of smallholding farmers in south-western Ethiopia. Data were generated through participatory field mapping, interviews and focus groups. The results indicated that wild mammals, mainly olive baboons Papio anubis and bush pigs Potamochoerus larvatus, were raiding most crops cultivated in villages close to forests. In addition to the loss of crops, farmers incurred indirect costs in having to guard and cultivate plots far from their residences, sometimes at the expense of their children's schooling. Raiding also undermined farmers’ willingness to invest in modern agricultural technologies. Various coping strategies, including guarding crops and adapting existing local institutions, were insufficient to reduce raiding and its indirect impacts on household economies to tolerable levels, and were undermined by existing policies and government institutions. It is essential to recognize wild mammal pests as a critical ecosystem disservice to farmers, and to identify ways to mitigate their direct and indirect costs, to facilitate local agricultural development and livelihood security, and integrate wildlife conservation and local development more fully in agriculture–forest mosaic landscapes.
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| 4. |
- Cuni-Sanchez, Aida, et al.
(författare)
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High aboveground carbon stock of African tropical montane forests
- 2021
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Ingår i: Nature. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 0028-0836 .- 1476-4687. ; 596:7873, s. 536-542
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Tropical forests store 40–50per cent of terrestrial vegetation carbon. However, spatial variations in aboveground live tree biomass carbon (AGC) stocks remain poorly understood, in particular in tropical montane forests. Owing to climatic and soil changes with increasing elevation, AGC stocks are lower in tropical montane forests compared with lowland forests. Here we assemble and analyse a dataset of structurally intact old-growth forests (AfriMont) spanning 44 montane sites in 12 African countries. We find that montane sites in the AfriMont plot network have a mean AGC stock of 149.4megagrams of carbon per hectare (95% confidence interval 137.1–164.2), which is comparable to lowland forests in the African Tropical Rainforest Observation Network4 and about 70per cent and 32per cent higher than averages from plot networks in montane and lowland forests in the Neotropics, respectively. Notably, our results are two-thirds higher than the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change default values for these forests in Africa8. We find that the low stem density and high abundance of large trees of African lowland forests is mirrored in the montane forests sampled. This carbon store is endangered: we estimate that 0.8 million hectares of old-growth African montane forest have been lost since 2000. We provide country-specific montane forest AGC stock estimates modelled from our plot network to helpto guide forest conservation and reforestation interventions. Our findings highlight the need for conserving these biodiverse and carbon-rich ecosystems.
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| 5. |
- Dorresteijn, Ine, et al.
(författare)
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Disaggregating ecosystem services and disservices in the cultural landscapes of southwestern Ethiopia : a study of rural perceptions
- 2017
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Ingår i: Landscape Ecology. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 0921-2973 .- 1572-9761. ; 32:11, s. 2151-2165
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Cultural landscapes provide essential ecosystem services to local communities, especially in poor rural settings. However, potentially negative impacts of ecosystems-or disservices-remain inadequately understood. Similarly, how benefit-cost outcomes differ within communities is unclear, but potentially important for cultural landscape management. Here we investigated whether distinct forest ecosystem service-disservice outcomes emerge within local communities. We aimed to characterize groups of community members according to service-disservice outcomes, and assessed their attitudes towards the forest. We interviewed 150 rural households in southwestern Ethiopia about locally relevant ecosystem services (provisioning services) and disservices (wildlife impacts). Households were grouped based on their ecosystem service-disservice profiles through hierarchical clustering. We used linear models to assess differences between groups in geographic and socioeconomic characteristics, as well as attitudes toward the forest. We identified three groups with distinct ecosystem service-disservice profiles. Half of the households fell into a lose-lose profile (low benefits, high costs), while fewer had lose-escape (low benefits, low costs) and win-lose (high benefits, high costs) profiles. Location relative to forest and altitude explained differences between the lose-escape profile and other households. Socioeconomic factors were also important. Win-lose households appeared to be wealthier and had better forest use rights compared to lose-lose households. Attitudes towards the forest did not differ between profiles. Our study demonstrates the importance of disaggregating both ecosystem services and disservices, instead of assuming that communities receive benefits and costs homogenously. To manage cultural landscapes sustainably, such heterogeneity must be acknowledged and better understood.
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| 6. |
- Fischer, Joern, et al.
(författare)
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A social-ecological assessment of food security and biodiversity conservation in Ethiopia
- 2021
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Ingår i: Ecosystems and People. - : Informa UK Limited. - 2639-5908 .- 2639-5916. ; 17:1, s. 400-410
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- We studied food security and biodiversity conservation from a social-ecological perspective in southwestern Ethiopia. Specialist tree, bird, and mammal species required large, undisturbed forest, supporting the notion of ‘land sparing’ for conservation. However, our findings also suggest that forest areas should be embedded within a multifunctional landscape matrix (i.e. ‘land sharing’), because farmland also supported many species and ecosystem services and was the basis of diversified livelihoods. Diversified livelihoods improved smallholder food security, while lack of access to capital assets and crop raiding by wild forest animals negatively influenced food security. Food and biodiversity governance lacked coordination and was strongly hierarchical, with relatively few stakeholders being highly powerful. Our study shows that issues of livelihoods, access to resources, governance and equity are central when resolving challenges around food security and biodiversity. A multi-facetted, social-ecological approach is better able to capture such complexity than the conventional, two-dimensional land sparing versus sharing framework.
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| 7. |
- Fischer, Joern, et al.
(författare)
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Reframing the Food-Biodiversity Challenge
- 2017
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Ingår i: Trends in Ecology & Evolution. - : Elsevier BV. - 0169-5347 .- 1872-8383. ; 32:5, s. 335-345
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Forskningsöversikt (refereegranskat)abstract
- Given the serious limitations of production-oriented frameworks, we offer here a new conceptual framework for how to analyze the nexus of food security and biodiversity conservation. We introduce four archetypes of social-ecological system states corresponding to win-win (e.g., agroecology), win-lose (e.g., intensive agriculture), lose-win (e.g., fortress conservation), and lose-lose (e.g., degraded landscapes) outcomes for food security and biodiversity conservation. Each archetype is shaped by characteristic external drivers, exhibits characteristic internal social-ecological features, and has characteristic feedbacks that maintain it. This framework shifts the emphasis from focusing on production only to considering social-ecological dynamics, and enables comparison among landscapes. Moreover, examining drivers and feedbacks facilitates the analysis of possible transitions between system states (e.g., from a lose-lose outcome to a more preferred outcome).
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| 8. |
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| 9. |
- Jiren, Tolera S., et al.
(författare)
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Reconciling food security and biodiversity conservation : participatory scenario planning in southwestern Ethiopia
- 2020
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Ingår i: Ecology and Society. - 1708-3087. ; 25:3
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Social-ecological systems are complex and involve uncertainties emerging from interactions between biophysical and social system components. In the face of growing complexity and uncertainty, stakeholder engagement with the future is important to proactively manoeuvre toward desirable outcomes. Focusing on the interrelated challenges of food security and biodiversity conservation, we conducted a participatory scenario planning exercise in a rural landscape in southwestern Ethiopia. We involved 35 stakeholder organizations in multiple workshops to construct causal loop diagrams, elicit critical uncertainties, and draft scenario narratives. Jointly, we developed four plausible future scenarios for the studied landscape: (1) gain over grain: local cash crops; (2) mining green gold: coffee investors; (3) coffee and conservation: a biosphere reserve; and (4) food first: intensive farming and forest protection. These scenarios differ with respect to their main social-economic dynamics as well as their food security and biodiversity outcomes. Importantly, three of the four scenarios, i.e., all except coffee and conservation: a biosphere reserve, focused on increasing efficiency in agricultural production through intensification, specialization, and market integration. In contrast, coffee and conservation: a biosphere reserve was driven by agroecological production methods that support diversified livelihoods, a multifunctional landscape, maintenance of natural capital, a governance system that supports local people, and social-ecological resilience. Similar agroecological trajectories have been advocated as desirable for sustainable development in numerous other smallholder farming systems worldwide. Given fewer trade-offs and better equity outcomes, it appears that an agroecological development pathway stands a good chance of generating synergies between food security and biodiversity conservation. Pathways prioritizing agricultural efficiency, in contrast, are more likely to degrade natural capital and cause social inequity.
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| 10. |
- Muscarella, Robert, et al.
(författare)
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The global abundance of tree palms
- 2020
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Ingår i: Global Ecology and Biogeography. - : Wiley. - 1466-822X .- 1466-8238. ; 29:9, s. 1495-1514
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- AimPalms are an iconic, diverse and often abundant component of tropical ecosystems that provide many ecosystem services. Being monocots, tree palms are evolutionarily, morphologically and physiologically distinct from other trees, and these differences have important consequences for ecosystem services (e.g., carbon sequestration and storage) and in terms of responses to climate change. We quantified global patterns of tree palm relative abundance to help improve understanding of tropical forests and reduce uncertainty about these ecosystems under climate change.LocationTropical and subtropical moist forests.Time periodCurrent.Major taxa studiedPalms (Arecaceae).MethodsWe assembled a pantropical dataset of 2,548 forest plots (covering 1,191 ha) and quantified tree palm (i.e., ≥10 cm diameter at breast height) abundance relative to co‐occurring non‐palm trees. We compared the relative abundance of tree palms across biogeographical realms and tested for associations with palaeoclimate stability, current climate, edaphic conditions and metrics of forest structure.ResultsOn average, the relative abundance of tree palms was more than five times larger between Neotropical locations and other biogeographical realms. Tree palms were absent in most locations outside the Neotropics but present in >80% of Neotropical locations. The relative abundance of tree palms was more strongly associated with local conditions (e.g., higher mean annual precipitation, lower soil fertility, shallower water table and lower plot mean wood density) than metrics of long‐term climate stability. Life‐form diversity also influenced the patterns; palm assemblages outside the Neotropics comprise many non‐tree (e.g., climbing) palms. Finally, we show that tree palms can influence estimates of above‐ground biomass, but the magnitude and direction of the effect require additional work.ConclusionsTree palms are not only quintessentially tropical, but they are also overwhelmingly Neotropical. Future work to understand the contributions of tree palms to biomass estimates and carbon cycling will be particularly crucial in Neotropical forests.
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| 11. |
- Rodrigues, Patrícia, et al.
(författare)
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Coffee management and the conservation of forest bird diversity in southwestern Ethiopia
- 2018
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Ingår i: Biological Conservation. - : Elsevier BV. - 0006-3207 .- 1873-2917. ; 217, s. 131-139
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Moist evergreen forests of southwestern Ethiopia host high levels of biodiversity and have a high economic value due to coffee production. Coffee is a native shrub that is harvested under different management systems; its production can have both beneficial and detrimental effects for biodiversity. We investigated how bird community composition and richness, and abundance of different bird groups responded to different intensities of coffee management and the landscape context. We surveyed birds at 66 points in forest habitat with different intensities of coffee management and at different distances from the forest edge. We explored community composition using detrended correspondence analysis in combination with canonical correspondence analysis and indicator species analysis, and used generalized linear mixed models to investigate the responses of different bird groups to coffee management and landscape context. Our results show that (1) despite considerable bird diversity including some endemics, species turnover in the forest was relatively low; (2) total richness and abundance of birds were not affected by management or landscape context; but (3) the richness of forest and dietary specialists increased with higher forest naturalness, and with increasing distance from the edge and amount of forest cover. These findings show that traditional shade coffee management practices can maintain a diverse suite of forest birds. To conserve forest specialists, retaining undisturbed, remote forest is particularly important, but structurally diverse locations near the forest edge can also harbour a high diversity of specialists.
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| 12. |
- Rodrigues, Patrícia, et al.
(författare)
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Predicting the impacts of human population growth on forest mammals in the highlands of southwestern Ethiopia
- 2021
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Ingår i: Biological Conservation. - : Elsevier BV. - 0006-3207 .- 1873-2917. ; 256
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Projections of human population growth for 2050 indicate that Africa is expected to steadily increase its rural population, raising questions on how to best accommodate people while minimizing impacts on biodiversity. We explored the outcomes of scenarios of rural population growth mediated by housing development. We designed our scenarios based on (i) patterns of housing development (i.e., housing densification versus expansion), (ii) level of human population growth, and (iii) forest protection. Using camera traps, we surveyed mammals in the moist Afromontane forests of southwestern Ethiopia. We modelled mammals' responses to current and alternative housing development trajectories, using generalized additive mixed models. Our results suggest that (i) rural population growth is likely to negatively influence several mammal species, including a threatened predator (the leopard) as well as common crop raiding species such as baboons; (ii) negative impacts of population growth are likely to be exacerbated if new housing encroaches the forest (i.e., expansion), and likely to be less detrimental if houses are built within the existing human footprint (i.e., densification); and (iii) effects of human population growth can be modified by land-use decisions unrelated to biodiversity conservation, such as protection of economically important forest cover (native coffee forest in our study area). The location, extent and magnitude of housing development in southwestern Ethiopia can limit the ability of several mammal species to persist in the landscape. Our findings suggest that incorporating the ecological effects of housing development into landscape planning is fundamental to align conservation goals with development plans.
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| 13. |
- Schultner, Jannik, et al.
(författare)
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Ecosystem services from forest and farmland : Present and past access separates beneficiaries in rural Ethiopia
- 2021
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Ingår i: Ecosystem Services. - : Elsevier BV. - 2212-0416 .- 2212-0416. ; 48
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Ecosystem services are essential to human well-being. Different mechanisms modify people's access to the benefits from ecosystem services, but who benefits from which services, and the underlying factors that shape such variability, often remain unclear. To address this, we surveyed current and past ecosystem service flows from forest and farmland into rural Ethiopian households. After disaggregating beneficiary groups, we explored current and past mechanisms that impeded or facilitated their access. We found five groups of current ecosystem service beneficiaries that received varying degrees of service flows from forest and farmland. Important access barriers were economic problems and shortage of land, particularly for worse-off households, and wildlife damage and labour shortage. Over time, flows from forest and those directly benefiting human well-being (e.g. food, energy) were perceived to have declined, especially for worse-off groups. In contrast, access to emerging market-oriented services with indirect benefits (such as cash crops) increased, but especially so for better-off groups who capitalised on market opportunities and agricultural intensification. Forest cover loss and protection caused decreased access across groups. Identifying group-specific access problems and trajectories, removing economic, land- and labour-related barriers, and addressing environmental challenges, are important to facilitate equitable sharing of the benefits of rural ecosystems.
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| 14. |
- Shumi, Girma, et al.
(författare)
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Conservation value of moist evergreen Afromontane forest sites with different management and history in southwestern Ethiopia
- 2019
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Ingår i: Biological Conservation. - : Elsevier BV. - 0006-3207 .- 1873-2917. ; 232, s. 117-126
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Tropical forest ecosystems harbor high biodiversity, but they have suffered from ongoing human-induced degradation. We investigated the conservation value of moist evergreen Afromontane forest sites across gradients of site-level disturbance, landscape context and forest history in southwestern Ethiopia. We surveyed woody plants at 108 randomly selected sites and grouped them into forest specialist, pioneer, and generalist species. First, we investigated if coffee dominance, current distance from the forest edge, forest history, heat load and altitude structured the variation in species composition using constrained correspondence analysis. Second, we modelled species richness in response to the same explanatory variables. Our findings show that woody plant community composition was significantly structured by altitude, forest history, coffee dominance and current distance from forest edge. Specifically, (1) total species richness and forest specialist species richness were affected by coffee management intensity; (2) forest specialist species richness increased, while pioneer species decreased with increasing distance from the forest edge; and (3) forest specialist species richness was lower in secondary forest compared to in primary forest. These findings show that coffee management intensity, landscape context and forest history in combination influence local and landscape level biodiversity. We suggest conservation strategies that foster the maintenance of large undisturbed forest sites and that prioritize local species in managed and regenerating forests. Creation of a biosphere reserve and shade coffee certification could be useful to benefit both effective conservation and people's livelihoods.
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| 15. |
- Shumi, Girma, et al.
(författare)
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Land use legacy effects on woody vegetation in agricultural landscapes of south-western Ethiopia
- 2018
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Ingår i: Diversity & distributions. - : Wiley. - 1366-9516 .- 1472-4642. ; 24:8, s. 1136-1148
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Aim: Past land use legacy effectsextinction debts and immigration creditsmight be particularly pronounced in regions characterized by complex and dynamic landscape change. The aim of this study was to evaluate how current woody plant species distribution, composition and richness related to historical and present land uses. Location: A smallholder farming landscape in south-western Ethiopia. Methods: We surveyed woody plants in 72 randomly selected 1-ha sites in farmland and grouped them into forest specialist, generalist and pioneer species. First, we investigated woody plant composition and distribution using non-metric multidimensional scaling. Second, we modelled species richness in response to historical and current distance from the forest edge. Third, we examined diameter class distributions of trees in recently converted vs. permanent farmland. Results: Historical distance was a primary driver of woody plant composition and distribution. Generalist and pioneer species richness increased with historical distance. Forest specialists, however, did not respond to historical distance. Only few old individuals of forest specialist species remained in both recently converted and permanent farmlands. Main conclusions: Our findings suggest that any possible extinction debt for forest specialist species in farmland at the landscape scale was rapidly paid off, possibly because farmers cleared large remnant trees. In contrast, we found substantial evidence of immigration credits in farmland for generalist and pioneer species. This suggests that long-established farmland may have unrecognized conservation values, although apparently not for forest specialist species. We suggest that conservation policies in south-western Ethiopia should recognize not only forests, but also the complementary value of the agricultural mosaicsimilar to the case of European cultural landscapes. A possible future priority could be to better reintegrate forest species in the farmland mosaic.
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| 16. |
- Shumi, Girma, et al.
(författare)
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Woody plant species diversity as a predictor of ecosystem services in a social-ecological system of southwestern Ethiopia
- 2021
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Ingår i: Landscape Ecology. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 0921-2973 .- 1572-9761. ; 36, s. 373-391
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Context Human-dominated landscapes in the tropics need to be managed for biodiversity and the maintenance of ecosystem services (ES). Nevertheless, integrating both biodiversity conservation and ES management remains a challenge.Objectives This study aimed to quantify woody plant species diversity and associated ES in farmland and forests, and investigate the relationship between species and ES diversity.Methods The study was conducted in southwestern Ethiopia. We surveyed woody plants in 181 20 m by 20 m plots in farmland, forest with, and forest without coffee management. We also interviewed 180 randomly selected households about woody plant benefits. We then (a) quantified species and ES diversity; and (b) investigated the relationship between species and ES diversity.Results We recorded 128 woody plant species in total. Most ES were available in all land uses, although they differed in their mean availability. ES composition was significantly different among land uses. ES diversity was positively related with species diversity in all land uses.Conclusions Our findings suggest that all examined land-use types were multifunctional in terms of key ES provided by woody plants and that maintaining high species diversity also benefits ES diversity. Given these findings, we suggest to: (1) strengthen landscape multifunctionality by drawing on the positive relationship between biodiversity and ES diversity; (2) devise conservation policies that encompass entire landscape mosaics and enhance co-benefits of conservation and ES provision across land uses; and (3) conduct further social-ecological studies that use mixed data to elicit socially relevant relationships between biodiversity and ES diversity.
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| 17. |
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