Epsilon Open Archive

Abstract

Securing land management systems that maintain land covers is important for sustaining human livelihoods in Africa; however, simultaneously maintaining a viable natural environment is a serious challenge. Aggravated by rapid population growth and biodiversity loss, Ethiopia is an illustrative example of this issue. Stressing the need for a bottom-up stakeholder perspective, we identify and map land covers that deliver multiple ecosystem services that are important for the livelihoods of rural and urban citizens in the southern part of Ethiopia's Rift Valley. First, we interviewed 400 urban and rural residents to identify the land covers that deliver desired ecosystem services in three agroecological zones, representing a steep gradient in the livelihood conditions. Second, to support the inclusion of priority land covers in spatial planning, we located spatial concentrations of individual land covers providing bundles of desired ecosystem services. The majority of urban respondents selected homegarden agroforestry (92% of respondents from this group), freshwater lake (82%), river (70%), agroforestry shade-grown coffee (65%), natural old-growth forest (59%), rural settlement (52%), Afromontane undifferentiated forest (52%), and urban areas (73%) as important for their livelihood. In contrast, the majority of rural respondents selected three land covers: homegarden agroforestry (80% of respondents from this group), agroforestry shade-grown coffee (58%), and urban areas (65%). To maintain the identified natural and semi-natural priority land covers, at least two land management strategies are crucial to sustain the provision of ecosystem services for the livelihoods of both urban and rural people, and biodiversity conservation: (1) maintaining traditional agroforestry land-use practices, and (2) enhancing the protection and sustainable management of natural forest ecosystems. Additionally, integrated spatial planning is needed that considers both rural local community-based resource management that focuses on local needs for employment and products, and global demands to conserve biodiversity.