Wildlife Threats and Their Relative Severity of Eastern Ethiopia Protected Areas

Abstract

Protected areas in Ethiopia faced a range of threats. However, little information is known about the type, pattern, and extent of these threats. Understanding these issues are crucial in prioritizing conservation strategies and to take appropriate mitigation measure for effective protection of wildlife. This study attempts to investigate the relative severity of threat to eastern Ethiopia protected areas and how these protected areas are threatened to the identified threats. A total of forty-five field officers from the five eastern Ethiopia protected areas were interviewed. Thirteen potential threats that affect the biodiversity of eastern Ethiopia were identified. The most important threats include grazing by domestic animal, shortage of funding, increased human population growth, expansion of invasive alien species, weak law enforcement, encroachment of human settlement, human wildlife conflict, lack of alternative livelihood activities and others. All of the protected areas are susceptible to most of the identified threats. Protected areas having acacia commiphora and scrub land a predominant ecosystem type and surrounded by settlement and agricultural land uses practice were the most susceptible to the threat factors. Babile elephant sanctuary and Yangudi-Rassa national park are the two most threatened protected areas. 58% of the threats showed strong positive and significant relationship with protected area relative threatened index. Thus, involvements of multi stakeholders including local community is essential to develop protected area management strategies by prioritizing the identified threats to reduce biodiversity loss in eastern Ethiopia protected areas.