Practices And Challenge To Participatory Forest Management In Ethiopia The Case Of Chilimo-gaji Participatory Forest Management West Shewa Zone Oromiya National Regional State

Participatory Forest Management project initiated by Farm Africa in Dendi woreda wasrnoperational since 1996 in Chilimo-Gaji forest. Currently the management responsibilities havernbeen transferred to the communities around the forest. The aims of this thesis are to investigaternthe practices and challenges of participatory forest management and to investigate the rolesrnand interactions of different actors in the management process of the Chilimo-Gaji forest.rnThree forest users’ cooperatives were selected for data collection. To collect the datarnqualitative methods of data collection such as key informant interview, focus group discussionrnand field observations techniques were employed. The qualitative data were transcribed,rncategorized and indexed for analysis and interpretation. The results of the study showed thatrnresource attributes (e.g. forest block size, benefit sharing) and problems related to membershiprnaccession as well as poor financial management have negatively affected participatory forestrnmanagement in the study area. Moreover, the forest user communities were found to have doubt and insecurity regarding the continuity of the program due to low level of government support and restrictions to traditional resource use rights. The management overlapped with stockholders and the coordination among the proponent actors in forest management process was found to be very limited. Furthermore, the actors’ net work with higher officials, their relatives and the power dynamics among the various actors have adverse impact on the forest management process. This violation of the communities’ bylaw, rules and regulations resulted in some forms of responses from the forest user communities. Especially ‘adaptation’ and ‘resistance’ approaches were used by the local communities to get access to forest resources.rnLocal communities often rent donkey and form network with authorities and relatives as a formrnadaptation for accessing forest resources while. Various forms of passive and activernresistances were employed by the local communities in reactions to the communities’ bylawsrnand access to forest resources, respectively. Thus any successful implementations ofrnparticipatory forest management should take into account the challenges of local communities’ livelihoods, proper mandates of institutions and actors’ dynamics and power interactions.rnKey words: actors’ interactions, Chilimo-Gaji, community bylaw, forest user cooperatives,rnparticipation, tenure insecurity

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