Graduation date: 2008
In many areas of the developing world, the continued overexploiting forest resources has the potential to have significant detrimental impacts be placed on sustainable forest management (SFM) can help communities and organizations responsibly manage and utilize the remaining forests over the long term. Ethiopia’s forest lands provide tangible benefits from wood fiber production, non-timber products, and intangibles products like soil and water resources. Current practices and uses must be adjusted in order to meet the basic needs of the people and land today and into the future. Timber harvesting operations have not been adequately documented and therefore movement towards SFM is is lagging.
Data was collected to report the baseline information on timber harvesting in Ethiopia, including harvesting locations and organizations in both the natural forest of the southwestern regions and the plantation regions of the Rift Valley area. The overview establishes both the activities included in the harvesting process, but also the broader social, economic, and environmental context of the operations.
This overview of harvesting was used to help develop a decision framework to support decision making in the area of harvesting improvements that can help lead to SFM. The decision framework utilizes participatory data collection and coding processes that establishes a ranking of activities that can then be implemented on the ground. The issues surrounding harvesting are funneled down into solution categories that cover areas such as planning, tools and equipment, research, social programs, extension and training, and political change. Implementation of this decision framework on forest sites in Ethiopia identified potential adjustments to current operations and illustrated some of the challenges and accomplishments of the different forest areas and different managing organizations.