Farmers Participation toward Forest Production and Protection in Dawuro Zone, Essera District, Ethiopia

Natural resource degradation has become a serious environmental problem in Ethiopia. Deforestation, which is occurring at an alarming rate, is one of such problems. Forest cover has been declining at an alarming rate indifferent areas of Dawuro zone, Essera district. This is because of expansion of agricultural land, cutting of trees for fuel, construction, charcoal making and pit-sawing, which are the manifestations of population pressure as well as failure in property rights institutions. The study was carried out in SNNPR in Dawuro zone in general Essera district in particular. The study was focused on the assessment of farmers’ participation towards forest production and protection in Essera district of Dawuro zone. In the study both primary and secondary data were used. Primary data was obtained from the respondents through semi- structured questionnaires and, interview schedule Sample size was obtained from this district by purposively selecting two kebele from twenty nine kebeles. The respondents were selected randomly and sample size obtained was 60. Collected data was analyzed using the statistical package for the social sciences (SPSS) and appropriate statistical procedures for description (frequencies, percent, means and standard deviation) were used. An attempt has been made to assess farmers’ participation on forest production and protection in the study area. From the respondents almost all are males and all are married finally the collected data was analyzed by descriptive statistics such as percentages, frequencies and tabulation techniques. About 83.3% of the respondents participate on forest production and protection. The study also tried to show currently deforestation rate of forest was very high due to agricultural land expansion, for different constructions, fuel wood, urbanization, rural job opportunity for youths and climate change due to deforestation. Factors affecting farmers participation on forest production and protection were land size, age sex, family size, ethnicity, religion, education, marital status were the major ones. The study recommends that sustainable development and rural livelihood of rural household cannot be guaranteed through agricultural crops production alone. There is thus a need to restructure and strength the extension division service need to be established and integrated with the existing agricultural extension programs.