article · Trees Forests and People
In the Western Gurage Watersheds of the Omo-Gibe Basin in Ethiopia, eucalypt plantations have emerged as a dominant land use alongside Enset cultivation, addressing critical local needs for fuel wood and construction materials. Analysis of satellite imagery spanning 1987 to 2017 revealed notable shifts in land use and land cover. Plantation forests, Enset-based agroforestry, cereal crop areas, and built-up land expanded across the watersheds, while natural forests and grasslands declined. Although total forest cover fell between 1987 and 2000, it subsequently increased between 2001 and 2017 due to eucalypt expansion onto bare, grazing, and cereal crop lands. This expansion has been driven by population growth, cultural celebrations such as Meskel and Arafah, road development, improved market access, land degradation, and rising financial demands for fuel wood and timber income.
Understanding the drivers of eucalypt expansion helps communities, conservation planners, and land managers balance economic survival against environmental changes. Because communities rely heavily on fast-growing timber for construction, fuel, and income, tracking landscape shifts provides essential context for managing conflicting stakeholder interests and addressing environmental concerns surrounding commercial tree planting.
The abstract identifies eucalypts as a valuable commodity fulfilling strong local market demand for construction materials, fuel wood, and household revenue. While the study itself focuses on observational land cover mapping and socio-economic driver analysis rather than developing a direct commercial product, the findings could inform sustainable timber supply management and regional land-use planning for forestry practitioners and local wood-market enterprises.
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Land use and land cover (LULC) change is a common trend in all parts of the globe. The possible reasons might be economic, political, social or cultural motives. In Ethiopia, most of the rural and urban people are highly dependent on eucalypts for various purposes, particularly, for fuel wood and construction materials. In the study area, Western Gurage Watersheds of Omo-Gibe Basin, eucalypt plantations have become the emergent and dominant activity next to growing Enset. The specific objectives of this study were to assess the land use and land cover changes driven by eucalypt plantations over time and agro-ecological extent, and to identify socio-economic, demographic, and environmental factors that facilitated expansion of eucalypts plantation. Landsat images from 1987 (TM), 2001 (ETM) and 2017 (Landsat 8 OLI) were used for detecting LULC changes. Digital image processing operations, i.e. haze removal, geo-referencing, contrast enhancement and classification, were completed using ERDAS Imagine 2011 Software. During the period between 1987 and 2017, the area cover of LULC types, namely plantation forest, Enset-based agroforestry, cereal crop and built-up areas increased in the study watersheds at the expenses of natural forests and grassland. The total forest cover declined in the study period from 1987-2000 and, then, increased from 2001-2017 as a result of expansion of eucalypts in bare land, grazing land and cereal crop land use types. The drivers for the expansion of eucalypts in the watersheds are population growth, ‘Meskel’ and ‘Arafah’ celebrations, land degradation and conservation, road development, increased access to markets, and economic factors, such as the growing need for fuel wood, construction materials, and growing need for money. The divergent interest of stakeholders, skepticism and debate around eucalypts are presented; call for further scientific investigations and management options are recommended.
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DOI: 10.1016/j.tfp.2021.100087
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