Assessment Of The Impacts Of Forest Cover Change On Wildlife And Future Prediction For Forest Cover Change: A Case Of Galema Forest, Arsi Zone, Oromia, Ethiopia

Abstract

The forest of Galema provides an array of ecosystem services, including the provision of fuelwood, timber, and trees for timber production and service as a habitat for different wildlife living in the area. However, this forest was currently declining due to anthropogenic activities and natural factors. Due to the forest being changed at an alarming rate, wildlife faces different problems in this area. Thus, the aim of this study was to identify the impact of forest change on wildlife and make future predictions for forest change by using ERDAS 2015 Furthermore, a 22-year forecast was made using QGIS to suggest how the forest might change in the future. The study used two Landsat7 images from 2000ETM, 2011ETM and a Sentinel 2A image from 2022 to analyze forest change. These satellite images revealed five major land cover classes: high-density forest, dense forest, sparse forest, grassland, and farmland. Therefore, as a result of change detection, high density and dense forest were decreased by 5.4% and 20.9%, respectively, in the first eleven years and by 7% and 12.1 % in the second eleven years. Inversely, other land classes increased by 20.83%, 23.3%, and 1.4%. The frequency analyzed driving factors of forest change were farmland expansion, firewood collection, and charcoal production. Timber production, population growth, and wildfire Because of these factors, the forest was degraded, and all large mammals such as the Ethiopian wolf, Menelik bush back, Mountain nyala, Warthog, leopard, common jackal, hyena, and red jackal lost their habitat; there was a conflict with local people; they were killed by farmers; they died because of starvation, and they migrated to other areas. Thus, five wildlife populations decreased and Ethiopian wolf and redjackal were disappeared from the area. As the prediction result shows, high-density and dense forests were changed by 12.5 % and 33%, respectively. If this trend continues, the wildlife will lose their habitat and face the above problems. Therefore, in order to hold back the problem of forest cover change and its impact, corrective measures have been suggested that can be implemented both in the short term and long-term phases.