BIODIVERSITY AND SOCIAL IMPACTS OF TEA PLANTATION INVESTMENT: THE CASE OF GODERE AND MASHA DISTRICTS, SOUTH-WEST ETHIOPIA

Abstract

The primary goal of this paper was to investigate changes in LULCC over a 32-year period in southwestern Ethiopia using remote sensing and GIS techniques associated with large-scale tea plantation investment, as well as the negative effects of these changes on people's livelihoods and the local environment. South west Ethiopia peoples region is one of the regions of Ethiopia that attracts large-scale agricultural investments particularly tea and coffee plantations that widely coerce land use and cover changes in the region. Despite the great economic importance of this region, there have not been systematic studies of land use/land cover changes. The study was conducted in Godere and Masha Woredas with special prominence on Gumari, Kabo, Wello and Keja Kebelles from 1987 to 2019. The analysis was mainly based on Landsat 5 and Landsat 8 images integrated with fieldwork. ArcGIS 10.8 and ERDAS IMAGINE 2014 were used to analyze the data. Supervised image classification was applied using maximum likelihood algorithm. The result shows that forest land decreased by 36.3 ha/y and 87 ha /y from 1987 to 2019 for Masha and Godere; however, during this period, agricultural land area increased by 14 ha/y mainly at the cost lush montane forests. Generally, parts of the Sheka and Majang forest bio-reserve area, which are the nation's relic forest ecosystems, largely affected by Land Use and Land Cover changes attributed to large scale tea and coffee investment. The conversion of forest to farmland and tea-coffee investment has caused varied and extensive environmental degradation to these areas