Forest Tenure and Forest Management Partnership in Ethiopia

Dr. Yihenew Zewdie is a Visiting Research Fellow at the ASC.

Ethiopia’s forest resource base, which is mostly found in the Southwestern highlands, supports a multitude of agricultural production systems and patterns of resource use. However, similar to the trend in other parts of the developing world, deforestation has taken a heavy toll in this part of Ethiopia. A closer understanding of the interface between tenure policies and local level resource access processes is considered by many as a key element in the search for home-grown alternatives for sustainable forest management. Drawing case materials from highland Kafa, in Southwest Ethiopia the paper examines state-community and intra-community relationships in the course of accessing forest resources under governments of widely differing political persuasions, and endeavours to identify issues of change and continuity in the forest tenure scene. The paper concludes by identifying some thoughts that would help promote forest management partnership among concerned stakeholders.