Abstract: Managing forest through local participation is a phenomenon that emerged over recent decades as a remedial measure to the old (top down) form of forest management. One of the core concepts in this Participatory forest management (PFM) is improving sense of ownership by empowering forest dependent communities as both developer and beneficiaries of forest resources. Accordingly this research was under taken on Jello forest in Western Hararghe zone, Oromia regional state, with the objective of studying local communities’ attitude towards PFM approach and improvements in the forest dependent communities sense of ownership toward the forest. A total of 172 sampled respondents were randomly selected from both non-PFM and PFM member households. Data were collected from sampled households using Household survey questionnaire, key informant interview and focus group discussion. Qualitative data were analyzed using content and discourse analyses; whereas quantitative data were analyzed by descriptive statistics using R-statistical software. Accordingly the result of household survey, focus group discussion and key informant interview were revealed that local communities have positive attitude towards PFM and after the PFM was introduced local communities’ sense of ownership toward the forest has significantly improved. About 70% of non- PFM and 85% of PFM members were strongly agreed that the establishment of PFM has improved local communities’ sense of ownership towards the forest. Based on the findings of this study it could be concluded that PFM is effective in improving local communities sense of ownership towards the forest an effectively compensate the short comings of centralized forest management system.Abstract: Managing forest through local participation is a phenomenon that emerged over recent decades as a remedial measure to the old (top down) form of forest management. One of the core concepts in this Participatory forest management (PFM) is improving sense of ownership by empowering forest dependent communities as both developer and beneficiaries of f...Show More
Abstract: The current rapid increase in population together with expansion of the town is producing large volumes of wastes, which demand greater infrastructure, institutional setup and community participation for its management. However, most of solid wastes that generated are remaining uncollected and simply dumped at open space. This study focused on identifying the types of solid wastes, waste generation rates, management practices and municipal solid waste management service of Chiro town. The results were based on the data collected from sample respondents that drawn from three kebeles of the town, proportional to total households through simple random sampling techniques. The result revealed that the types of wastes produced by sample respondents were organic matter, plastic, paper and clipboard, metal and others wastes (ash, leather and e-waste). The average solid waste generation rate of the town is 0.304 kg/capita/day. In the town there is no recognized prepared place either for the waste collection or for final disposal. The common disposal places used by the community were ditch (44.95%), local field (20.7%), road side (24.2%), farm land (3.5%) and burning-burying (4.5%). Yet around 2% of the respondents do not know where the wastes come out of their home finally disposed to as they deliver it by informal waste pickers. Therefore, its top priority to prepare the dumping sites and establish institutional setup for proper handling of the waste in the town.Abstract: The current rapid increase in population together with expansion of the town is producing large volumes of wastes, which demand greater infrastructure, institutional setup and community participation for its management. However, most of solid wastes that generated are remaining uncollected and simply dumped at open space. This study focused on iden...Show More