THE ROLE OF PARTICIPATORY FOREST MANAGEMENT IN SUSTAINING RURAL LIVELIHOOD AND FOREST CONDITIONS IN SHEKO FOREST, SOUTH WESTERN ETHIOPIA

Different arrangements of decentralized forest management highlighting the inclusion of communities have been promoted to halt deforestation and environmental degradation. The participatory Forest Management (PFM) scheme was introduced as an alternative tool to enhance sustainable forest management through community participation during the early 1990s. This study was conducted in the Sheko forest to examine the role of PFM on the livelihoods of rural community and forest conditions. Forest inventory and socioeconomic surveys were conducted to collect data through involving 95 households and 27 sample plots. The data were analyzed by descriptive and inferential statistical tools. The result indicated that PFM has positive impacts on both forest conditions and rural livelihoods. Income derived from forest products was 89.06%. Of this71.76% was obtained from forest coffee collection while the remaining was shared between honey production and wild spice collections. A total of 55 woody plant species belonging to 34 families were recorded from the three forest zones. Of this, 45 were found within unmanaged dense forest zone, 41 in semi-forest coffee-based agroforestry zone and, 21 in the open zone agroforestry. Overall Shannon diversity index was 3.25 in unmanaged dense forest, 2.89 in semi-forest coffee-based agroforestry and, 1.9 in open zone agroforestry. Higher seedling and sapling densities were recorded under unmanaged forest followed by open zone agroforestry and semi-forest coffee-based agroforestry. The lower number of seedling and sapling under semi-forest coffee-based agroforestry could be attributed to frequent weeding and thinning activities. Concerning the diameter distribution, the unmanaged forest zone displayed uniform distribution and semi-forest coffee-based agroforestry zones displayed a J shaped distribution while the open zone displayed an inverted J shaped distribution suggesting a better regeneration of tree in the unmanaged forest and open zone agroforestry while in semi-forest coffee-based agroforestry zones intervention was required to improve poor regeneration of tree species. Keywords: Forest income, forest status, forest products, Livelihoods, Participatory Forest Management