International Journal of
Biodiversity and Conservation

  • Abbreviation: Int. J. Biodivers. Conserv.
  • Language: English
  • ISSN: 2141-243X
  • DOI: 10.5897/IJBC
  • Start Year: 2009
  • Published Articles: 678

Article in Press

The Role of Area Exclosures for Biodiversity Conservation and Its Contribution to Local Livelihood in Ethiopia

Melese Bekele

  •  Received: 01 August 2018
  •  Accepted: 04 September 2018
Frequent worsening of land resources have become a serious threat to both the ecological systems and economic development in Ethiopia. These problems attributed directly or indirectly to the rapid declining of forests in unsustainable use and management; to escape land degradation problem rehabilitation is best option and different studies shown in Tigray, Amhara (wello and shewa) and Oromia Region, exclosure is one of the land management types that limit human and livestock intervention and increases woody and herbaceous plants and population structure in terms of species richness and diversity compared to open grazing land. Also, the results indicated that comparison of 10yrs, 5yrs, 3yrs area closures and open land with total density of seedlings, saplings, and trees in each land use types accounted 1017, 785,61 and open land 63 respectively species. In general, the result revealed that management influenced the vegetation density, richness and diversity and; also the management of enrichment planting is very important to accelerate restoration of biological diversity of the areas when there is soil seed bank poorness. Exclosure helps soil erosion protection, enhancing productivity and minimize surface runoff and improves infiltration. When comparing the soil status of 10 years area exclosure and open grazing land, the 10 years enclosed area had organic matter (2.4), total nitrogen (0.27) and available phosphorous (4.5) and the open grazing land had organic matter (1.5), total nitrogen (0.2) and available phosphorous (3). As the result indicated that closed areas had significantly higher organic matter, total nitrogen, and available phosphorus compared to free grazing lands, and area exclosure is a good practice in soil reclamation and improvement of soil nutrient and reducing erosion. Area exclosure dose not only recovery of vegetation diversity of degraded areas but also input for extracting non-timber forest products like grass (Thatch), firewood and medicinal plants and earning incomes from sale of these products which supports their livelihoods during shortcoming season. It needs to harmonize the economic goals of local people and the ecological recovery of degraded areas by designing area exclosures. Therefore, this prepared using interment, different books and proceeding’s to show the contribution of exclosure for biodiversity conservation and its contribution for local livelihood improvement in the literatures.

Keywords: Area exclosure, livelihood, open grazing land and biodiversity