Sustainability analysis of the Munessa- Shashemene dry Afromontane natural forest from local communities’ perspectives

Abstract

ABSTRACT Assessing attitudes and perceptions of local communities is a crucial step in forest management and planning that can have major consequences for sustainability. However, empirical studies on sustainability analysis from local communities’ perceptions are scarce especially on the Afromontane forests. Therefore, this paper analyzes the sustainability of Munessa-Shashemene dry Afromontane natural and plantation forests from local communities’ perceptions. The data were collected from randomly selected 200 households, five key informants, and six focused group discussions. The results revealed that the majority (85.5%) of respondents influenced the sustainability of the Munessa-Shashemene dry Afromontane natural forest based on the current forest product utilization trends and perceptions of the economically preferred tree species in the forest. The forest products have been decreasing over time due to deforestation and degradation of the Munessa-Shashemene forest (93.5%) and economically valuable tree species were substituted by inferior one for various forest products. Consequently, as an area with both general and particularly economically valuable indigenous tree species, the Munessa-Shashemene forest can be sustained by implementing intensive silvicultural operations and enrichment planting for economically favored tree species along with Hagenia abyssinica, Juniperus procera, and Myrsine melanophloeos. Further research investigations are needed on the restoration techniques of degraded preferred tree species to enhance sustainability and reduce future challenges related to forest degradation.