The Role Of Area Exclosures For Biodiversity Conservation And Its Contribution To Local Livelihoods

The continuous deterioration of the natural resource base has become a serious threat tornboth the ecological systems and economic development in Ethiopia. These problems havernbeen attributed directly or indirectly to the rapid declining of the country's forest coverrnwhich is associated with unsustainable forest use and management. Exclosing communityrnwoodlands from human and livestock intervention to promote natural regeneration ofrnforests has been one of the environmental restoration strategies practiced in therndegraded hilly areas of East Shewa Zone of Oromia Region, Ethiopia where this studyrnwas conducted. In order to assess the role of area exclosures to biodiversity conservationrnand its contributions to household livelihoods, data were collected from two Arearnexclosures (Old-Biyo and Young-Kelala) and Kelala open grazing land which is adjacentrnto young-Kelala exclosure. Old-Biyo is more than 20 years since exclosure whereasrnYoung-Kelala is 7 years and the open grazing land was used as control. Systematic andrnrandom samplings were used to collect vegetation data and households were randomlyrnselected from the villages where area exclosures were practiced. The analysis ofrnvegetation data was made for the area exclosures and adjacent open grazing land. Thernresult revealed that the stand densities of all woody plants in the old and young arearnexclosures were 1022ha-1 and 587 ha-1 respectively. However in the open area the densityrnwas 180 ha-1. Sorensen’s similarity coefficient indicated considerable dissimilarity in thernspecies compositions of vegetations among the exclosures and open area varyingrnbetween 0.19-0.26.Restoration of woody plants increases while herbaceous plantsrndecreases as the exclosure is aged in terms of species richness and diversity. A total ofrn133 species representing 107 genera and 45 families and were recorded from the studyrnareas where twenty species were recorded common to the exclosures and open grazingrnland. The proportion of trees, shrubs and herbs accounted for 24.06%, 30.83%andrn45.17% respectively from all the recorded species. The most dominant families recordedrnin the exclosure areas were Poaceae, Fabaceae, Asteraceae, Lamiacese, Euphorbiaceaernand Malvaceae. However, in the respective open grazing land Poaceae, Asteraceae, andrnFabaceae were the dominant families. Commonly in both areas, Poaceae, Asteraceaernand Fabaceae were the dominant families occurred. The Shannon’s diversity index wasrnhigher (3.66) for Old –Biyo exclosure and lowest (2.03) for Kelala open grazing land. Inrngeneral, the result revealed that management influenced the vegetation density richnessrnand diversity. The contribution of different livelihood strategies mainly crop productionrnand animal husbandry accounts for 96.93% however income from the exclosure productsrnaccounts only for 3.07% of the annual household income. On the other hand, incomerngenerated from the area exclosures product contribute higher amount to the poorrnhouseholds but lower to the rich ones. The study showed that area exclosures not onlyrnplay potential role in enhancing the recovery of vegetation diversity of degraded areasrnbut also contributes to household income. However there is a need to harmonize therneconomic goals of local people and the ecological recovery of degraded areas inrndesigning area exclosures.rnKey words: Area Exclosure, Free grazing, Livelihood, Vegetation diversity

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