Impact of exclosures on wood biomass production and fuelwood supply in northern Ethiopia

In the Ethiopian highlands, communal grazing lands are one of the major land uses, and are source of livelihood for the rural people. Free and uncontrolled grazing in the communal grazing lands is the dominant grazing system. The traditional uncontrolled and free grazing system has caused severe degradation of the grazing lands. As a result, communities have started to establish exclosures and support the restoration of degraded communal grazing lands. Studies have shown that exclosures are effective to restoring degraded communal grazing lands and improving ecosystem services. However, studies that investigate the changes in aboveground biomass following the establishment of exclosures and compare it with fuelwood demand of the beneficiaries in our study area is lacking. Therefore, our study aimed at:(1) quantifying yearly biomass accumulation in exclosures and compare it to fuelwood demand of households that manage the exclosures;(2) assessing household energy sources and their consumption levels. To monitor changes in biomass production with over time, replicated(n = 3) 5 and10 year-old exclosures were sampled. To investigate fuelwood sources and consumption patterns, household surveys, key informant interviews and focus group discussion were conducted. Our results demonstrated that total biomass production increased with exclosure age. In both exclosure, biomass production from Vachellia etbaica was significantly(p \ 0.05) greater than that from Euclea.racemosa. Average daily fuelwood consumption per person was(0.63 ± 0.2) kg day^(-1). This means that the total biomass(27.5 Mg year^(-1)) obtained from 114.6 ha of exclosures covers only 9.4% of yearly fuelwood demand of the residents who manage the sampled exclosures. Nearly all respondents(95%) confirmed that they travel more than10 km day^(-1) to gather fuelwood from surrounding degraded forest patches. We recommend plantings of fast growing native tree species within exclosures and around homesteads to provide a sustainable fuelwood supply and using improved stoves to address the problem of fuelwood shortage. District agricultural offices could provide seedlings of native plant species, while communities provide unpaid labour for planting and managing plantations.

Preliminary investigation on rodent–ectoparasite associations in the highlands of Tigray, Northern Ethiopia:implications for potential zoonoses

We studied associations between rodents and their arthropod ectoparasites in crop fields and household compounds in the highlands of Tigray,Northern Ethiopia.Ectoparasite infestation indices,such as percent infestation,mean abundance,prevalence and host preferences,were calculated for each taxon.In total,172 rodents from crop fields and 97 from household compounds were trapped.Rodent species and numbers trapped from the crop fields and household compounds were Mastomys awashensis(Lavrenchenko,Likhnova&Baskevich,1998)(88 and 44),Arvicanthis dembeensis(Ruppel,1842)(63 and 37)and Acomys sp.(21 and 16),respectively.A total of 558 insects and acarids(belonging to 11 taxa)were recovered from the rodents trapped in the crop fields,and 296 insects and acarid(belonging to 6 taxa)from the rodents trapped in the household compounds.Approximately 66%of the rodents trapped from the crop fields and 47%of those trapped from the household compounds were infested with ectoparasites.Laelaps sp.(64.9%)and Xenopsylla sp.(20.6%)comprised the highest proportion of the ectoparasites recovered in the crop fields,and the same ectoparasites,but in reverse order,comprised the highest proportions in the household compounds(Xenopsylla[50.3%]and Laelaps sp.[29%]).Our study revealed that crop fields and household compounds in the highlands share similar rodents and several ectoparasites.Furthermore,at least 1 of the rodent species and some of the ectoparasites identified in this study were reported to have posed medical and veterinary threats in other parts of Ethiopia and neighboring countries.