Biodiversity Management within the Agroecosystem of the West Arsi Zone, Southeast Ethiopia

Abstract

Abstract The main objective of this study was to assess biodiversity management practices within the agroecosystem of the West Arsi Zone of Southeastern Ethiopia. Four Woredas namely, Wondo, Adaba, Kokossa and Nensebo were purposively selected based on their conservation and diversification practices. The Primary data collection methods like questionnaires, Focus group discussion, and key informant interview and field observation were used to identify the biodiversity conservation practices, especially, the vegetation diversity and the livestock management practices within the agroecosystem. Books, reports and articles were used as secondary sources of information to support the study. Diversity indices, Shannon diversity index and Evenness index were used to identify the vegetation diversity based on the three dominant land use practices homegarden, field crops and grazing land. To sum up, Least significance Difference (LSD) test at 0.05 was used to identify the vegetation diversity per land uses and households and also to check significant level among the household respondents. Therefore, SPSS (version 21) was implemented to assess the diversity of plants and animals within the agroecosystem of the study areas. The result of the study indicates that there was significant different among the Woredas (P < 0.05) regarding vegetation diversity per land uses and households. Based on the field experiments, homegarden is the most land use category having different diversity of vegetation (H׳=4.77) followed by field crops (H׳=4.06).From equity perspective, the homegarden vegetation of the agroecosystem is also the most evenly distributed (J׳=0.99) followed by grazing land (J׳=0.98).From the four Woredas, the highest vegetation diversity was recorded in Wondo Woreda, particularly, in homegarden (20.86 ± 3.85), while the lowest vegetation diversity was recorded in the homegarden of the Nensebo Woreda (7.38 ± 0.644). However, the Kokossa Woreda is the best in terms of vegetation diversity within the grazing land (13.774 ± 1.54) followed by the Nensebo Woreda (9.8723 ± 1.115). There is also significant variation (P < 0.005) among the Woredas regarding the livestock holding per households. For instance, Kokossa Woreda is the best in terms of cattle population per households (12.495 ± 4.633) followed by the Adaba Woreda (8.043 ± 2.86).Since the agroecosystem of the West Arsi Zone is full of animal and vegetation diversity, all concerned stakeholders should give due attention for the area to get greater output of production.