ABSTRACT
Ethiopia, one of the poorest nations in the world (World Bank, 2010), alarms with a high deforestation rate and a remaining forest cover of less than 3 per cent (Bekele, 2001). To stop this development and to preserve one of the last resources of natural forest in the country, the Integrated Forest Management Project (IFMP) operates in the Bale Mountains of Ethiopia. By providing exclusive forest user rights for forest-dweller families (Figure 16.1a), this project aims to generate income from sustainable forest management of the remaining Afromountain forest (Figure 16.1b), which is scattered with pastures, agricultural plots and isolated settlements and threatened by the conversion into agricultural land (Kubsa, 2002). This study assessed whether the conditions for sustainable forest management, as anticipated by the IFMP, are favourable and whether the participating forest-dwellers are able to implement it. Forest-dwellers in Bale Mountains and forest-related activities https://s3-euw1-ap-pe-df-pch-content-public-p.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/9781849776400/a7e02f31-66af-46ee-a8e2-356b55628f0d/content/fig16_1_B.jpg" xmlns:xlink="https://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"/> Notes: 1a: A forest-dweller family. 1b: Remaining natural high forest, generally dominated by Juniperus procera, Podocarpus falcatus and Hagenia abyssinica. 1c: Pit-sawing platform. 1d: Transport of Juniper poles to a local market. 1e: Construction of a local hut with Juniper splits.
