Walia Special Edition on the Bale Mountains (2011) - Zoologische ...

As more literature seeks to explore the poverty and environment link (Bucknall et al. 2000;
IUCN 2005; Ash and Jenkins 2007), Ethiopia provides an interesting case study to assess the value
of ecosystem goods and services accruing directly to rural populations, the direct consumptive
use value. With a population of 75 million in 2007 (IMF 2007), 85% live in rural areas and 78%
on less than US$ 2 per day (UNDP 2007). With the majority of Ethiopia’s 1,221,900 km2 land
area falling into one of two biodiversity hotspots (GEF 2006), the need to balance development
and conservation goals is clear. Understanding the economic incentives of natural resource use
and underlying economic dependence of rural households on ecosystem goods and services will
prove crucial for conservation efforts, sustainable development and poverty reduction. The only
study exploring economic dependence on forest resources in Ethiopia which we are aware of is
Mamo et al. (2007), who assessed the intra-community economic dependence on forest resources
using income as a proxy for dependence. They found forest incomes contribute 39% of household
income, agriculture, including livestock, contributes 40%, and forest income is most important for
the poorest households. These findings reinforce the contention that degradation of ecosystems will
have negative welfare consequences and highlights the possibility that costs may not be evenly
distributed. It does not, however, consider the inter-community differences in value derived from
ecosystem goods and services. Here we use primary data from the Bale Mountain Eco-region,
southern Ethiopia, to assess the direct consumptive value of ecosystem goods and services deriving
to rural communities, and to investigate differences between communities within the same policy
and management context.
Description of Study Area
Location
The Bale Mountains Eco-region forms part of the Bale-Arsi massif in the south-eastern Ethiopian
Highlands. In the Oromia Regional State, it covers 22,176 km2 with a population estimated
at 1,276,062 in 2001 (ABRDP 2004). There is large topographic variation over the Eco-region
with a central afro-alpine plateau at 4000 m a.s.l. falling rapidly to the south, with moist tropical
forest between 3700 and 1500 m a.s.l., and to the north of which habitats comprise of woodlands,
grasslands and wetlands between 3000 and 3500 m a.s.l. Containing the largest area of Afroalpine
habitat on the continent and the second largest moist tropical forest in Ethiopia, the habitats of the
Bale Mountains host a number of rare and endemic species (Asefa this edition). It belongs to one of
34 global biodiversity hotspots (Williams et al. 2005). The Eco-region also encompasses the Bale
Mountains National Park that, although established since 1971, has never been legally constituted
and access is largely unregulated (see Tadesse et al. this edition).
Policy context
Management of natural resources in the Bale Mountains has a history shared across wider Ethiopia.
Until the 1990s, civil war and political instability sidelined natural resource conservation and
<strong>Walia</strong>-<strong>Special</strong> <strong>Edition</strong> on the Bale Mountains 183