Agricultural Investment and Trans-boundary Ecosystem Management: A Case of Gambella and Boma National Parks

Abstract

1. Introduction 1.1. Background The well-being of human population depends upon the services provided by ecosystems and their components: organisms, soil, water, and nutrients (Filho et al., 2021).The concept of services provided for the human well-being by natural ecosystems was framed in its present form during the end of the 20th century (Baskin, 1997; Daily, 1997). The current rate of biodiversity loss and ecosystem degradation resulting from anthropocentric activities far exceeds that ever recorded in the history of the Earth (Filho et al., 2021; MA 2005a; Layke, 2009; Costanza et al., 1997; MA, 2005a; Fisher et al., 2009; Maynard et al., 2010). The term ecosystem services denote the economically valuable services generated by natural ecosystems as by-products of their normal functioning. One of the natural ecosystems is the forests ecosystems. Forest landscapes cover a third of the Earth's surface and are estimated to contain as much as two-thirds of all known terrestrial species. Forest ecosystems provide a wide array of goods and services. However, in the last 8,000 years, about 45% of the Earth's original forest cover has been converted (FAO, 2000). Gambella National Park, found in Southwestern parts of Ethiopia, and Boma National Park found in South Sudan are potentially rich fertile and productive land, with diversified natural resources, and are highly suitable for agriculture. However, the natural landscapes of the theses parks have been subjected to a continuous transformation of landscapes (Tilahun, 2015; Taye et al., 2016; Degife and Mauser, 2017), attributed to both natural and anthropogenic drivers (Nyssen et al., 2014; Haregeweyn et al., 2015), threatening the environmental income sources and influences the livelihoods of the community (Degife and Mauser, 2017; Taye et al., 2016; Tilahun, 2015), and leading the local population for food shortages (Degife and Mauser, 2017). These dynamic changes have brought visible changes to the ecosystem services provided by forest and wet landscapes of the parks (TAMS and ULG, 1997). Moreover, even though the value of landscape ecosystems is well recognized and different approaches for managing landscape ecosystems are being developed, landscape management approaches failed to achieve land management objectives due to fundamental natural, social and user-generated problems associated with policy formulation and implementation