Forest Landscape Restoration in Eastern Africa: Progress and Gaps in Engaging Communities Habtemariam Kassa Forests and Human Well-being Research Team Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR) Email: [email protected]Prepared for the 7 th Conference of the ASEAN Working Group on Social Forestry (AWG-SF) Held in Chiang Mail, Thailand June 12-16, 2017
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Forest Landscape Restoration in Eastern Africa: Progress and gaps in engaging communitites
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Forest Landscape Restoration in Eastern Africa: Progress and Gaps in Engaging
Communities
Habtemariam Kassa Forests and Human Well-being Research Team
Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR)Email: [email protected]
Prepared for the 7th Conference of the ASEAN Working Group on Social Forestry (AWG-SF)
Held in Chiang Mail, ThailandJune 12-16, 2017
Eastern Africa - As per the UN Statistics division, 20 territories constitute
Eastern Africa:
Variably defined by geography or geopolitics
Horn of Africa – Eritrea, Ethiopia, Djibouti and Somalia
East African Community – Subset of Eastern Africa
IGAD – Horn of African countries and Sudan
COMESA – many more than Eastern Africa
1.1. Eastern Africa
1. BACKGROUND
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1. Background (Contd.)
• It is a region characterized by the diversity of history and
political systems countries follow in the region – Somalia,
Kenya, South Sudan, Sudan, Ethiopia, Eritrea, etc.
• New countries emerged over the last 30 years
• Affected by severe and more frequent droughts and political
instability – e.g. Sudan, Somalia, Ethiopia
• Migration and decades-old refugee camps still prevail
• Efforts are underway to address NRM challenges through
IGAD and serious community mobilsation for NRM in Eth.
• We hope to facilitate experience sharing through collaborative
works where Eastern African countries could learn from the
experiences of ASEAN in managing natural resources in
general and forest management in particular
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1. Background
1.2 Ethiopia
• An important country in East Africa in terms of population
• A rapidly growing population of over 100 million
• Most (over 80%) depend on smallholder mixed farming in the
highlands, and livestock production in the lowlands)
• Over 15 million HHs live on the highlands where farm sizes
are shrinking (average less than 0.5ha/HH)
• Much of the highland area is severely degraded
• Agricultural expansion and fuelwood extraction are major
drivers of deforestation and forest degradation, respectively
Wide ranging altitudes, diverse topography and mountainous nature of the country result in 33
major agro-ecological zones (EIAR, 2011) that in turn produce diverse vegetation and forest
types – with different challenges, development and management options
Ranges of temperature (top), rainfall (middle) and altitude (bottom)
Red shows lowest in altitude and rainfall and highest in temperature.
Source: CRGE Strategy (2011)
Most mountainous and diverse country
Potential distribution map of major natural
vegetation types of Ethiopia
(Firris et al, 2010)
Current national forest cover
(MEFCC and FAO, yet to be published)
Consequences of deforestation and forest degradation
Soil erosion and loss of soil fertility,
Siltation and its impact on energy production
Loss of biodiversity and habitats
Encroachment of desertification
Increased wood and feed shortage
Decline in volume and quality of water
Increased import bills (wood and wood products)
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1.4. What is being done?1.4.1. Historical trends of relevant policies and plans
• Conserving some sites (in the 15th Cen) and introducing new
species (early 20th century)
• 1930s - 1940s – Focus on use of existing forests for timber
• Mid 1940s to mid 1970s - Considering forests as wastelands
to encourage conversion to crop fields
• 1970s – Sahelian drought forced government to focus on
forests
• 1975 – major national land reform, nationalized forests
• 1980s and 1990s – Soil and water conservation works
• 1994 National forest law, revised in 2007
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1. Background
• Mid 2000s – national tree planting campaigns
• Land use certificates improved tenure security and this led to
the expansion of farmer initiated woodlots on landcspes
• In 2011, Ethiopia formulated its CRGE Strategy – and forestry
was identified as one of the four important economic sectors.
• In 2013, a separate Ministry (MEFCC) was established
• Emphasis to forestry research grew – establishing EEFRI
• As part of the Bonn Challenge, the GoE pledged to rehabilitate
15 million hectares of degraded forests and this was increased
to 22 m at the NY Climate summit in 2014
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1. Background
• To achieve those targets, major stated led rehabilitation
initiatives are
– PFM – to reduce D&D in state owned natural forests by
actively engaging communities (so far over 1.5 million ha put
under PFM)
– Area exclosures – to rehabilitate over 3 millions of ha of