Inventory of Woody species in Boginda Forest

Abstract

1. Introduction The natural forest coverage of Ethiopia once has been 35% (42 million ha)of the total land area (EFAP, 1994). By the early 1950s high forests were reduced to 16% of the total land area. It has been estimated by the early 1980s that the land area covered by natural forest had declined to 3.6% and by 1989 to about 2.7% (EFAP, 1994; EPA, 1997). The recent estimate of the annual loss of the country's natural forest area is between 80,000 _ 200,000 ha and if the present rate of deforestation continues, the area covered by natural forests may be reduced to scattered minor stands of heavily disturbed forest in remote parts of the country in 10 year time (EFAP, 1994; EPA, 1997). The major causes of forest destruction in Ethiopia are: increasingly intensive use of land for agriculture and livestock, tree cutting for fuel wood and construction materials, forest fires and human settlement. These major causes of forest destruction are very much interrelated to each other and are also in one way or another related to the population growth of the country. The population growth rate of Ethiopia is estimated to be 2.9% yead (CSA, 2000). The population growth is not backed with economic growth of the country and this has a great impact on the natural resources especially on the forest land. The economy of the country is based on agriculture from which more than 88% of the populations are engaged. This economic sector has a growth rate of averaging no more than 0.3% Year- 1 (EFAP, 1994). The stagnating and very poor growth of this economic sector leads to the horizontal expansion of agricultural land clearing the remnant forest cover, which leads to the exploitation of the country's natural resources much faster than the natural replacement rate. The extent of forest destruction is also increasing from time to time due to an escalating demand of land for cropping, grazing and fuel wood. Fuel wood is the major energy source of the country. The weighted average of annual per capita energy consumption for the households (rural and urban) of the country is 1.2m3 or 241kg of oil equivalent (EFAP, 1994) and from this, according to the Ethiopian National Energy Steering Committee (1986), 94.5% of the nation's energy comes from biomass source and 77% of it is derived from wood and tree residues. The rapid deforestation rate is also accompanied by a variety of environmental problems. The depletion and degradation of the forest resources affects the whole ecosystem. Deforestation has resulted in soil erosion, loss of soil fertility, loss of reliable water supply, loss of habitat for wildlife and climate change. The loss of soil from Ethiopian highlands annually was estimated to range from 1.9 to 3.5 Billion tons (EFAP, 1994). Nowadays, in many parts of the country, crop residues and animal dung are the major sources of fuel. According to EF AP (1994), the present burning of animal dung and crop residues for energy represents a loss in crop production of about 700,000 tons of grain and these all have a fundamental influence upon the declining standard of living faced by many households. By considering this problem, the Ethiopian government had taken a recommendable action to launch a Forest Genetic Resource Conservation Project (FGRCP) recently under the Institute of Biodiversity Conservation and Research (IBCR) in July 1998 with technical and financial assistance from the Federal Republic of Germany. The overall objective of FGRCP is to contribute towards attaining a sustainable development of the economic, socio-cultural and ecological values of the forest ecosystems. The purpose of the project is to protect and conserve the forest genetic resources of Ethiopia according to appropriate concepts and strategies. To attain its purpose, FGRCP has recently embarked on inventories of woody plant diversity and socioeconomic surveys in selected forest areas throughout the country. Boginda forest is one of the selected forests for this inventory work. This forest is one of the moist evergreen montane forests, which occur in southwestern parts of the plateau. In general the moist evergreen montane forests are found at altitudes between 800 - 2500m a.s.l. having an average annual temperature of 18 - 25°C and an annual rainfall of more than 1200mm, with rain through out the year. These forests were also highly exploited for timber production and the uncontrolled exploitation has reduced their size significantly. These forests are also known for harboring wild coffee. Boginda forest is one of the forest areas chosen for coffee conservation. This forest is penetrated by the newly constructed Diri-Masha road. As in other parts of the country, the deforestation rate of Boginda forest is very high, which could lead to high . forest genetic erosion. According to the results obtained from the socio-economic survey report of Consulting for Coffee Conservation (1998), the major causes of deforestation in Boginda forest are c1earinglburning of the natural forest for cultivation of food crops and planting coffee as well as for settlement and chasing wild animals, pit-sowing, cutting of trees/shrubs for fuel wood, construction materials and cutting of big trees to harvest honey. This report also confirmed that Cordia africana and Pouteria adolfi-friederici are in an endangered status as a result of heavy exploitation. This unsustainable and destructive exploitation of the forest has caused tremendous forest degradation leading to rareness and final extinction of the forest species. Therefore, there is an urgent need to study the woody plant species diversity and determine their current conservation status in order to establish appropriate genetic conservation methods. The study was conducted to achieve the following specific objectives: 1. To determine the floristic composition of the forest. 2. To determine the structure of the forest. 3. To assess the regeneration status of the forest. 4. To contribute towards the compilation of a priority list of indigenous woody plant species.