Forest Policy and Governance for Sustainable Forest Management in Ethiopia: The Case of Bale Eco-Region, Oromia Regional State
No Thumbnail Available
Date
2021-07
Authors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Addis Ababa University
Abstract
With the ineffectiveness of centralized forest management, the Participatory forest
management approach was introduced in to the forests eco-system of the Bale Eco-Region
in the late 1990s. In addition to this, REDD+ project was implemented in the Bale EcoRegion between 2012 and 2015 to ensure sustainable forest management. However, despite
the efforts made by different actors, deforestation and forest degradation have been
continued due to mainly poor forest policy formulation and implementation and lack of
good forest governance. Hence, the purpose of this study was to examine the challenges of
forest policy and governance in sustainable forest management in the Bale Eco-Region of
Oromia Regional State. To this end, mixed research approach was adopted and thus, the
desired data was collected through key-informant interviews, focus group discussions and
questionnaires. Depending on this methods, the study found the following key things. First,
the federal forest policies are not easy for implementation because further regulations are
not developed at the regional level, there is conflict of interest between the regional and
federal government over policy development , the time when to achieve the policy
intentions are not specified and the inputs of all key stakeholders are not exhaustively
incorporated. Second, there is lack of good forest governance, particularly lack of
accountability, low efficiency, low fairness and ineffectiveness in the Bale Eco-region.
Finally, while implementing the REDD+ project, forest governance of the Bale Eco-Region
has faced different challenges, such as weak institutional arrangements, continuation of
deforestation, low enforcement capacity, low economic benefit of the community, lack of
strong coordination with media and research institutes, conflict of interest among sectors
over forest land, and lack of adequate budget and logistics to undertake proper monitoring
and evaluation. Hence, every concerned stakeholder should contribute their part to improve
the formulation and implementation of forest policy, good forest governance, to finance
the REDD+ to improve the forests and community livelihoods, to improve the forest audits
and coordination of forest offices with media and research institutes
Description
Keywords
Forest policy; good forest governance; REDD+; Participatory forest management; Bale Eco-Region