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Abstract
This article examines the role of forest products in the livelihoods of forest-dependent households in the Yayu Coffee Forest Biosphere Reserve in the South Western part of Ethiopia. Unlike many forest landscapes, households in Yayu district cultivate their primary crop, coffee, in a complex landscape. Sampled households (n = 241) were chosen based on the stratified random sampling method. We employ both descriptive statistics and econometric regression to assess the extent of forest product use and analyse the determinants of forest income, respectively. We find that relatively poor households are more dependent on forest resources as a share of total income than better-off households. We further find that households in the Yayu district use non-timber forest products (NTFPs) mainly for consumption. The current zoning arrangements around the biosphere reserve support the provision of NTFPs, particularly for poorer households and should be considered for replication in other complex landscapes.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
Supplemental Data
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Notes
1 Note that different terms are used in the literature as synonyms for non-timber forest products. Various authors used terms such as minor forest products, non-wood forest products, and secondary forest products interchangeably. In this article, the term NTFPs is used to refer to all types of forest products, except timber, and includes firewood and other non-wood forest products such as spices, medicinal plants, fodder, etc.
2 For example, if two individuals with the same total level of household income derive equal amounts of forest resources which have equal value, then according to the definition of forest dependency (i.e., the ratio of forest resources to total household income, the ratio will be higher for the poor.
3 Retrieved from http://www.unesco.org/new/en/natural-sciences/environment/ecological-sciences/biosphere-reserves/africa/ethiopia/yayu/.
4 It is believed that the historical value of this site to the community has contributed to its preservation. The local inhabitants in the study area are ethnic Oromos. The Gadaa System organizes the Oromo society into groups or sets (about 7–11) that assume different responsibilities and society every eight years. The historical Gada Assembly site, known as Bakke-Abba-Alanga (literally means Lawmakers or Legislators Site) is located in the southern part of the proposed biosphere reserve area. All customary rules and amendments to the existing rules of the indigenous institutions used to be made at Bakke-Abba-Alanga.
5 Kebele is the lowest administrative unit in Ethiopia.
6 Alternatively, it is possible to use the local price as reported by farmers (what they receive to sell a unit of that particular product) to value the total amount of forest products collected in a year.
7 The contribution of forests to major environmental services, such as soil conservation and carbon sequestration, or general aesthetic and spiritual values is not considered in this study. Such services require specialized valuation techniques, such as contingent valuation, travel cost methods, etc. (Cavendish Citation2002). In general, the values reflect the gross economic value of non-timber forest products. For this reason, scholars agreed that NTFPs have often been undervalued, since studies only considered their direct-use values (Shackleton, Shackleton, and Cousins Citation2001).
8 For detailed discussion on Tobit models please refer to Scott (Citation1997) and Maddala (Citation1983).
9 Since we do not have actual measurements for distance, it is calculated using GPS location of household and ArcGIS 3D analysis which accounts for slope. In addition, data on distance from the buffer zone (instead of core areas) would have been better, as actual collection of NTFP takes place in this zone.
10 Chat is an important perennial crop widely cultivated in the Ethiopian highlands of the Oromia region.
11 This is a long-stemmed, woody vine that is rooted in the soil and climbs or twines around other plants (retrieved from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liana). They are used to make a variety of things including baskets, ropes and wicker furniture in the study area.
12 In this study, absolute forest income is the total value of forest products collected (both consumption and cash income); relative forest income is the share of forest income in total household income; and forest dependency is defined as a case where people’s subsistence livelihoods are in part derived from forests. That is, if some part of their own diet, housing, transport, fuel, or medicine comes from forests (Newton et al, Citation2016).
13 According to Dokken and Angelsen (Citation2015), the predicted income in the analysis of forest reliance in Tanzania is obtained from a regression of income on household assets (including liquid and non-liquid assets), household characteristics, and other village-level variables in a regression. The authors argue that the resulting predicted income is a better measure for the poverty status of a household than the observed income.
14 As the number of zeros is few, we ran a multiple regression (OLS) model of the share of forest income against the same socio-economic variables. We found that the results are the same. This is due to the fact that the regression results using Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) converge to Tobit estimates as the number of zeros decreases.
15 It has to be noted that the respondents are also the main decision makers in the household.
16 However, a recent study by Angelsen et al. (Citation2014) found that households located close to forests do not have significantly higher absolute or relative forest income. As discussed in Section 3.1, we do not have household level information on location measured in terms of distance of households from forest and the nearest main road. Hence, the result based on the GIS-based information should be interpreted with caution.
17 We have also included livestock ownership as an additional wealth indicator. We found that it is not significant, probably due to the nature of the farming system. In the study area, livestock is less important and the local community livelihoods are primarily based on food crops and coffee production (Gole et al. Citation2014).