Abstract
The restoration of degraded forests to maintain ecosystem services, conserve endemic biodiversity and to enhance climate change adaptation is a major concern in developing countries. In Northern Ethiopia, large forests have been converted into arable land; today the last remaining refugia for native woody plant species are found around churches. The so-called church forests are considered as the last natural seed banks for native trees species, reference areas for local endemism and last corner stones for species distribution. Against this background, NABU, a German originated NGO, initiated a conservation programme and investigated the species and structural composition of 10 pilot church forests. A total of 74 woody species (41 tree, 26 shrub and 6 liana species) representing 32 families were recorded. Differences between forests were strongly expressed in species number (14–35) and number of seedlings (150–4150/ha). Similarities between forests decreased following the altitude difference. It was found that for successful restoration of the pilot forests, interconnecting them by vegetation corridors, creating buffering areas and livestock fencing as well as and reforesting were suitable measures. NABU therefore implemented a restoration programme for safeguarding the last green forest islands together with the Ethiopian Orthodox Church.
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Acknowledgements
The study was part of the project ‘For People and Nature—Establishment of a UNESCO biosphere reserve at Lake Tana, Ethiopia’ implemented by NABU in cooperation with Michael Succow Foundation and funded by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ). The author and NABU therefore would first of all like to thank the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) for funding. Moreover, we would like to thank ARARI and in particular the experts Beyene Belay and Daginet Amare for their excellent work. Finally, we would like to express our gratitude to the team NABU of NABU Project Office Bahir Dar as well as NABU Headquarters Berlin, in particular Birgit Zipf and Agatha Küchler, for their dedicated and restless support.
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Kassahun, T., Bender, S. (2019). Saving the Last Endemic-Church Forests in Ethiopia: The Case of Lake Tana Biosphere Reserve. In: Leal Filho, W., Barbir, J., Preziosi, R. (eds) Handbook of Climate Change and Biodiversity. Climate Change Management. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-98681-4_12
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