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Environmental Management (2014) 53:838854 DOI 10.1007/s00267-014-0243-9
Participatory Forest Management in Ethiopia: Learning from Pilot Projects
Aklilu Ameha H. O. Larsen Mulugeta Lemenih
Received: 27 February 2013 / Accepted: 20 January 2014 / Published online: 2 February 2014 Springer Science+Business Media New York 2014
Abstract Different arrangements of decentralized forest management have been promoted as alternatives to centralized and top down approaches to halt tropical deforestation and forest degradation. Ethiopia is one of the countries piloting one of these approaches. To inform future programs and projects it is essential to learn from existing pilots and experiences. This paper analyses ve of the pilot participatory forest management (PFM) programs undertaken in Ethiopia. The study is based on the Forest User Group (FUG) members analyses of the programs using selected outcome variables: forest income, change in forest conditions, forest ownership feelings and effectiveness of FUGs as forest managing institutions. These variables were assessed at three points in timebefore the introduction of PFM, during the project implementation and after the projects ended. Data were collected using group discussions, key informant interviews and transect walks through the PFM forests. The results show that in all of the ve cases the state of the forest is perceived to have improved with the introduction of PFM, and in four of the cases the improvement was maintained after projects ended. Regulated access to the forests following introduction of PFM was not perceived to have affected forest income negatively. There are, however, serious concerns about the institutional effectiveness of the FUGs after projects ended, and this may affect the success of the PFM approach in the longer term.
Keywords Participatory forest management Forest user
groups Forest conservation Ownership feelings
Institutional effectiveness Ethiopia
Introduction
Decentralized governance is considered conducive to increasing the accountability of institutions at all levels (Crook and Manor 1994), and in providing more effective management of natural resources at local level (Ribot 2003). Particularly, decentralized forest management has been hailed widely to hold the potential for halting tropical deforestation by insuring tenure security and more responsible forest governance (Angelsen and Wunder 2003; Cavendish 2000; Poffenberger 2006; Sunderlin et al. 2005; Wily and Mbaya 2001). Since the forest decentralization approach emerged in southeast Asia in the late 1970s, the area of forest under...