Abstract
The decline of vegetation cover is one of the most challenges overall the world. Vegetation degradation is, also one of the crucial issues in mountainous areas of Ethiopia. In northern high lands of Ethiopia, degraded hillsides have been allocated to youth groups for tree planting since the mid-1990s. Rehabilitation through allocating hillside is an approach of vegetation recovery of degraded hillsides via tree planting and construction of physical conservation structures.
However, the effect of the allocation of degraded hillsides on vegetation recovery has got less in attention. Hence, the study was conducted in Atsbi-womberta District, Tigray, Ethiopia; to investigate the contribution of allocated hillsides on woody vegetation recovery. The field survey was conducted using transect lines of 100 meters interval from which sample plots of 20m⨯20m were laid at 40 meters interval keeping 20 meters open space to avoid border effect. The result revealed that the average physical SWC structures constructed per hectare were higher under-allocated hillsides than the adjacent non-allocated communal hillsides. The seedlings' survival rate of allocated hillsides was greater than that of the non-allocated communal hillsides. The number of woody species composition encountered in the study sites were 16 woody species representing 12 families in the allocated hillsides, while in the non-allocated communal hillsides, 14 species representing 10 families were recorded. The density of woody species 214 trees, 2471 saplings, and 4471 shrubs per hectare in allocated hillsides, while 25 trees, 1466 saplings, and 6416 shrubs per hectare were obtained in non-allocated hillsides. Eucalyptus globulus, Eucalyptus camadulensis, and Euclea schimperi were the most dominant woody species in allocated hillsides, while Euclea schimperi, Becium grandiflorum, and Rumex nervosus were in non-allocated hillsides. The Shannon diversity index was recorded as 1.75 and 1.65 in Tikul-emni, 1.36 and 0.91 in Enda-anahb and 1.77 and 1.07 in Adefa both for allocated and adjacently non-allocated communal hillsides, respectively. The regeneration status of woody species based on diameter class distribution shown inverted J-shaped for allocated hillsides however bell-shaped for non-allocated communal hillsides. The overall results from this study indicate strongly that allocated hillsides are very advantageous to ensure good vegetation recovery in all districts of the region that have similar agro-ecological zone as the study area. Based on this fact, it is strongly recommended that such practice should be scaled-up to other sites within as well as outside the study area.
Keywords: Communal hillside, Regeneration, Species diversity, Survival rate, User-group
