Abstract

The objectives of the study were to assess current vegetation diversity in the rangeland and its effect on the livestock and socio-economics of the pastoralists. Vegetation data were collected from 72 sample plots laid on the four transects. The size of the main plot was 20 m x 20 m for tree species. Socio-economic data were analyzed using SPSS version 21 software packages. A total of 75 species of vascular plants belonging to 60 genera and 26 Families were identified from 72 plots. Fabaceae and Poaceae were found to be the dominant families. The Shannon diversity index of the vegetation was 2.10, and evenness index was 0.50, total basal area calculated was 3.25 m2/ha for tree plants species. These studies indicated that most tree species were identified to have poor regeneration status, while shrub species had good regeneration status; which means expansion of unpalatable shrub species and the indicator of bush encroachment in the study area. In the study area, rangeland vegetation composition dramatically changed from grassland to bush land within the past two decades. Due to this, pastoralists tend to change their livestock herd structure into small ruminant. This small ruminant economically has low amount with many return and pastoralists were economically distributed.

Key words: Rangeland, species diversity, pastoralist, herd structure.