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Land cover dynamics in the Simien Mountains (Ethiopia), half a century after establishment of the National Park

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Abstract

The Simien Mountains house several endangered and endemic wildlife species and provide important ecosystem services. Despite its regional environmental importance, the Simien Mountains are listed as World Heritage in Danger since 1997. This raised the need for an evaluation of landscape changes from before the establishment of the Simien Mountain National Park (SMNP) in 1969. For this purpose, historical terrestrial photographs (1966–2009) were re-analyzed from 2014 repeats, using an expert rating system with eight correspondents. An increase in forest was observed in the eastern and western edge of the SMNP at Sankaber and Imet Gogo (20–40%). In contrast, centrally in the SMNP (around Gich), the area covered with dense forest decreased with an estimated rate of −1.4% per decade. There is no significant effect (p > 0.05) of the boundary of the SMNP on woody vegetation change, because of continued anthropogenic pressure (especially wood cutting and livestock grazing) inside the SMNP. Also elevation and distance to scout camps do not affect rates of change, and however, the density of houses within 2.2 km (a proxy of population pressure) is able to explain 32% of the spatial distribution of woody vegetation decrease (p < 0.05). A subset of six repeated photographs, indicated an uplift of the treeline by more than 1 m year−1, in areas with low anthropogenic pressure. This is potentially related to increasing (average annual) temperature warming of up to 1.5 °C over the past 50 years. Overall, further reduction in anthropogenic pressure is urgent and crucial for recovery of the afro-alpine vegetation and the interrelated endangered wildlife in the Simien Mountains.

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Acknowledgements

This research was financially supported by the Belgian Special Research Fund (BOF fund, Ghent University) and was made possible by the Ethiopian Wildlife Conservation Authority, by Ato Girmay Ayalew in particular. Many thanks to Larry Workman and Bernhard Nievergelt for providing the historical photographs. We also thank the Wase-Tana Project (VLIR—Bahir Dar University) for their logistic support and the EWCA experts Ato Negussie Engdawork and Ato Azanaw Kefyalem as well as Yohannes Gebrehizir for field assistance. Thanks also goes to Silke Broidioi for her help and support.

Funding was provided by Ghent Special Research fund (Grant No. IV1).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Geography, Ghent University, Krijgslaan 281 S8, 9000, Ghent, Belgium

    Miro Jacob, Amaury Frankl, Sil Lanckriet, Etefa Guyassa & Jan Nyssen

  2. Centre for Development and Environment (CDE), University of Bern, Hallerstrasse 10, 3012, Bern, Switzerland

    Hans Hurni

  3. Laboratory for Wood Biology and Xylarium, Royal Museum for Central Africa, Leuvensesteenweg 13, 3080, Tervuren, Belgium

    Maaike De Ridder & Hans Beeckman

  4. Department of Land Resource and Environmental Protection, Mekelle University, Mekelle, Ethiopia

    Etefa Guyassa

  5. Research Fund – Flanders (FWO), Egmontstraat 5, 1000, Brussels, Belgium

    Amaury Frankl

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  1. Miro Jacob
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Jacob, M., Frankl, A., Hurni, H. et al. Land cover dynamics in the Simien Mountains (Ethiopia), half a century after establishment of the National Park. Reg Environ Change 17, 777–787 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10113-016-1070-8

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