Indigenous knowledge and practices on medicinal plants used by local communities of Gambella region, south west Ethiopia was conducted to investigate those potential and popular medicinal plants used for the treatment of various diseases in Gambella region. A total of 100 purposively selected inhabitants were employed in the study of which 84 were male and 16 were females. A traditional use of plants information was obtained by semi structured oral interviews from experienced rural elders, Focus group discussion and through questionnaire administered to traditional herbal medicine practitioners of the study area. 81 medicinal plants were identified for the traditional treatment of both human (25) and animal (16) disease. The highest numbers of medicinal plants for traditional uses utilized by this community were belonging to shrubs 30(37.03%) followed by trees (32.10%). The result reviled that 15.2% of the remedies are prepared from root part and squeezing accounts 17(20.99%) followed by chewing 14(17.28%). The major routs of administration of traditional medicines were reported oral 50(61.73%). Urine, placental retention and milk let down accounts higher informants’ consensus factor value (0.96). The findings showed that sheferaw and leele have higher fidelity level which is 100 and 92 respectively. Various factors were recorded as the main threats of medicinal plants in the study area. In conclusion, the community carries a vast knowledge of medicinal plants but this knowledge is also rapidly disappearing in this community. Such type of ethno-botanical studies will help in systematic documentation of ethno-botanical knowledge and availing to the scientific world plant therapies used as antivenin by the Gambella community and further research on plant species identification and chemical extraction is recommended.

Abstract:Municipal solid waste management is considered as one of the most serious environmental and social issue challenging municipal authorities in all major cities in India. The main problem is selecting a suitable landfill site for Solid Waste Management (SWM). Land filling is now accepted as the most widely used method for addressing this problem in all countries of the world. However, appropriate site selection for land filling is a problem in waste management and therefore needs to be addressed. This study aims at selecting a suitable solid waste landfill site for Visakhapatnam City, India for its future needs. A set of four main criteria and 13 sub criteria are considered for identifying suitable sites. The combination of GIS and the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) has been used to give weights to different criteria. Relative Importance Weightage (RIW) of each parameter over the other is calculated by pair-wise comparison using the 9-point scale. The suitability index (0.1-0.6) values are determined for five classes (excellent, good, moderate, poor and very poor) for land fill siting. The study also aims at generating an optimal route to the suitable sites identified from the waste transfer station by using Network Analyst module of ArcGIS software such that the total system cost can be minimized.

Development is a continuous process and is essential to enable the population to attain a better standard of life. But it should not be at the cost of the environment. The challenge of a development pattern striving to harmonize economics with social and environmental need requires active citizen participation in public issues. Involvement of the public is one of the fundamental principles of a successful EIA process. It not only provides an opportunity to those directly affected by a project to express their views on the environmental and social impacts of the proposal but also brings about transparency in the environmental clearance system. This paper focuses on public participation in EIA and its legal frame work.

Many low-income regions are largely affected by climate change impacts as a result of their relatively low adaptive capacity as pointed out by IPCC. Particularly, the change of climate has adverse implications to the Ethiopian economy with connection to different climatic parameters. The main objective of this study was to examine climate variability and its effect on rural households in Abobo District and Itang Special District. Both primary and secondary data were collected during the study. For this study, 240 HHs were interviewed from both Abobo District and Itang Special District while FDGs and KII were collected qualitatively. Relevant secondary data were also obtained from the National Meteorology Agency of Gambella station. Descriptive statistics were used to analyze the characteristics of sample households and farmers' perception of climate variability. Moreover, multivariate probit model was employed to identify the determinants of smallholder farmers’ choice of adaptation strategies to climate variability. The result indicated that the major adaptation strategies applied by smallholder farmers in the study area including the use of improved crop varieties, adjusting the planting date, planting trees, crop diversification and using drought-resistant crop. Multivariate Probit model result shows that age, education, farm income, extension contact and access to credit significantly affect HHs choose of improved verity as adoption strategy; total land hold, farm income and extension contact significantly affect HHs choose of adjusting planting date tree as adoption strategy; farm income is the only factor significantly affect HHs choose of planting tree as adoption strategy; age, education, farm income and access to credit significantly affect HHs choose of crop diversification as adoption strategy and education and access to credit significantly affect HHs choose of improved verity as adoption strategy.

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