Abstract
Some of the only Afromontane forest in northern Ethiopia today is on lands managed by followers of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, where for centuries priests and communities have conserved forest groves around church buildings. The ecological value of the thousands of church forests in Ethiopia has been widely acknowledged, but little is known about the diverse local institutions that govern these resources, or how such institutions might be changing in response to Ethiopia’s rapid recent economic development. This study uses a unique panel survey to explore changes in community perspectives on the social and ecological roles of church forests, and rules governing church forest use, in four Orthodox communities over time. Our sample consists of 122 household surveys conducted in 2002 and a further 122 surveys from 2014, with 71 households interviewed in both periods. We find that reported uses of church forests vary across forests and over time, with larger forests more likely to be used for extractive purposes such as firewood and construction timber, while smaller forests have become more restricted to renewable or non-extractive uses such as natural medicines, honey, and prayer. Results of logistic regression suggest church followers’ support for preserving church forests increases with age and access to alternative sources of firewood – including exotic Eucalyptus spp. plantations which are increasingly widespread in northern Ethiopia. We also observe a shift since 2002 away from an expectation that church followers themselves hold responsibility for rule enforcement in church forests to a perceived sharing of responsibility by church authorities (i.e. priests) and government (i.e. police) in 2014. Together the progressive introduction of exotic tree species in church forests combined with the erosion of religious norms surrounding local forest governance may threaten the integrity and diversity of these unique social-ecological systems.
Highlights
Forests conserved by communities due to their perceived religious or spiritual significance are found worldwide, and may represent the oldest form of protected areas management (Sheridan and Nyamweru 2008; Dudley et al 2009)
Since the effectiveness of institutional rules depends upon adherence to those rules by resource users – in this case, by church community members – this study focuses on exploring changes in community perspectives on the roles and rules of church forests
The goals of the four Ethiopian Orthodox church communities in this study were not investigated directly, differences in allowed uses and types of trees planted across church forests point to potential differences in the purpose the local social-ecological systems might be serving
Summary
Forests conserved by communities due to their perceived religious or spiritual significance are found worldwide, and may represent the oldest form of protected areas management (Sheridan and Nyamweru 2008; Dudley et al 2009). Sacred natural sites may provide economic benefits in the form of fuel, construction wood, food, fodder or other goods, with access to such benefits subject to resource availability, and subject to local rules and norms surrounding the sacred space (Rutte 2011). Some religiously-conserved forests cover vast landscapes – in Japan, Shinto and Buddhist shrine forests cover over 110,000 ha (Verschuuren et al 2010), in India there are over 100,000 sacred groves (Bhagwat and Rutte 2006), and Tibetan sacred mountains cover. In sacred natural sites systems where the forested area is relatively small and the number of people seeking benefits is large, the long-term viability of the social-ecological system is reliant upon the governance rules in place, and the degree to which resource users understand and adhere to those rules (Ostrom 1990, 2005; Janssen and Anderies 2007)
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