Coffee landscapes as refugia for native woody biodiversity as forest loss continues in southwest Ethiopia

Tadesse, Getachew; Zavaleta, Erika S.; Shennan, Carol

doi:10.1016/j.biocon.2013.11.034

Cited by 82 publications

(87 citation statements)

References 37 publications

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“…S1-S4) and local people rely on these church forests for the provisioning of livestock feed, tree seedlings, fuelwood, honey, clean water and other essential ecosystem services including shade, climate regulation, habitat for pollinators and spiritual values (Cardelús et al 2012;Amare et al 2016). In the southwest of the country, shade coffee cultivation has, until now, guaranteed that more or less natural forest remained an important land cover (Tadesse et al 2014), despite the clear trade-off between coffee productivity and forest ecological quality (Senbeta and Denich 2006;Schmitt et al 2010;Aerts et al 2011;Hundera et al 2013). In the central and northern Ethiopian highlands, however, high historical land use pressure has resulted in widespread deforestation and land degradation (Darbyshire et al 2003;Nyssen et al 2004).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Conservation of the Ethiopian church forests: Threats, opportunities and implications for their management

Aerts

Overtveld

November

et al. 2016

Science of The Total Environment

118

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In the central and northern highlands of Ethiopia, native forest and forest biodiversity is almost confined to sacred groves associated with churches. Local communities rely on these 'church forests' for essential ecosystem services including shade and fresh water but little is known about their region-wide distribution and conservation value. We (1) performed the first large-scale spatially-explicit assessment of church forests, combining remote-sensing and field data, to assess the number of forests, their size, shape, isolation and woody plant species composition, (2) determined their plant communities and related these to environmental variables and potential natural vegetation, (3) identified the main challenges to biodiversity conservation in view of plant population dynamics and anthropogenic disturbances, and (4) present guidelines for management and policy. The 394 forests identified in satellite images were on average ~2 ha in size and generally separated by ~2 km from the nearest neighboring forest. Shape complexity, not size, decreased from the northern to the central highlands. Overall, 148 indigenous tree, shrub and liana species were recorded across the 78 surveyed forests. Patch α-diversity increased with mean annual precipitation, but typically only 25 woody species occurred per patch. The combined results showed that >50% of tree species present in tropical northeast Africa were still present in the 78 studied church forests, even though individual forests were small and relatively species-poor. Tree species composition of church forests varied with elevation and precipitation, and resembled the potential natural vegetation. With a wide distribution over the landscape, these church forests have high conservation value. However, long-term conservation of biodiversity of individual patches and evolutionary potential of species may be threatened by isolation, small sizes of tree species populations and disturbance, especially when considering climate change. Forest management interventions are essential and should be supported by environmental education and other forms of public engagement.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Conservation of the Ethiopian church forests: Threats, opportunities and implications for their management

Aerts

Overtveld

November

et al. 2016

Science of The Total Environment

118

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“…These forests are believed to be the origin and primary center of diversity of Arabica coffee where coffee is still grown in the wild and contains a highly diverse gene pool . However, many of these forests have already been converted to agricultural landscapes, or the remnant forests are managed to produce semi-forest coffee, and a more intensive garden and plantation coffee systems (Table 1; Senbeta & Denich, 2006;Tadesse, Zavaleta, & Shennan, 2014;Wiersum, 2008). The semi-forest and smallholder coffee are cultivated under native forest canopies through planting coffee seedlings and allowing natural regeneration of coffee plants and clearing the understory vegetation Senbeta & Denich, 2006).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Prospects for forest-based ecosystem services in forest-coffee mosaics as forest loss continues in southwestern Ethiopia

et al. 2014

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a b s t r a c tWhen natural ecosystems are degraded owing to land-use changes, humans will increasingly rely on managed landscapes for biodiversity and ecosystem services. In landscapes with ongoing foresteagriculture transitions and agricultural intensification, we need to understand the impact of land-use changes on ecosystem service provisioning and the relative roles of remnant forests and managed landscapes in ecosystem service delivery. Using socio-ecological surveys in southwest Ethiopian agroecosystems, we assessed the impact of land-use changes on forest-based ecosystem services and livelihoods, and the prospects for coffee agroforests to provide complementary forest-based ecosystem services. We found that over 67% of provisioning and <50% of cultural and regulating forest-based services can be provided by semi-forest and garden coffee systems. Most forest-based cultural, regulating and supporting services cannot be substituted in coffee agroforests since these services are largely concentrated in the forest remnants. The extent to which people substitute or complement those losses in coffee agroforests depends on the livelihood strategies and socio-cultural practices of local people, management intensity, and policy and demographic factors that affect agroecosystem intensification.

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“…This could be due the reason that H. abysinicca has a natural ability to withstand and grow under an extreme pressure of human influence. Furthermore, Negash et al (2012) and Tadesse et al (2014) suggested that it may be the result of socio-culture, land use and management intensities, and farmers' perceptions on the specified tree in the area that leads the allowance of trees to grow. Furthermore, Table 2 shows a simple descriptive statistics of number of saplings dead for O. africana at all sub watersheds considered for this study.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Growth and survival rate of endemic trees of Ethiopia: Olea africana and Hagenia abysinicca in Lake Haramaya Watershed, Eastern Ethiopia

Sorecha¹

2017

J. Hortic. For.

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The study was conducted to explore the growth and survival rate of the native tree species of Ethiopia, Olea africana and Hagenia abysinicca in Lake Haramaya Watershed, Eastern Ethiopia. Three sub watersheds of Lake Haramaya Watershed, namely, Bachake, Damota, and Tinike were selected purposefully on the basis of their extreme degradation and nearby vanished Lake Haramaya. In each sub watersheds, a total of about 12 main standard quadrats have been applied and the required data has been recorded. The result of the study indicated that O. africana performs well at Damota sub watershed, accounting 38% of survival rate followed by Tinike sub watershed having a survival rate of 37%. Only 29% of the total planted O. africana were survived at Bachake sub watershed. Furthermore, it has been revealed via this study that about 55.6% of H. abysinicca survived at Damota sub watershed. Comparing the survival rate of the two species, H. abysinicca better withstand and grow under an extreme pressure of local peoples intervention at all sub watersheds. Therefore, the study shows that growing and maintaining of these two endemic trees in all sub watersheds were difficult task unless much awareness will be made. Lastly, the study encourages mega projects on growth and survival rate of other native trees species and explores the challenges associated with growing these trees in the study area in specific and in Ethiopia in general.

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Coffee landscapes as refugia for native woody biodiversity as forest loss continues in southwest Ethiopia

Cited by 82 publications

References 37 publications

Conservation of the Ethiopian church forests: Threats, opportunities and implications for their management

Conservation of the Ethiopian church forests: Threats, opportunities and implications for their management

Prospects for forest-based ecosystem services in forest-coffee mosaics as forest loss continues in southwestern Ethiopia

Growth and survival rate of endemic trees of Ethiopia: Olea africana and Hagenia abysinicca in Lake Haramaya Watershed, Eastern Ethiopia

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