The Role of Homegarden Agroforestry in Biodiversity Conservation at Yayo Coffee Forest Biosphere Reserve, Chora District, South-western Ethiopia

摘要

Traditional homegardens in southwest Ethiopia is well-known land use practices playing important role in biodiversity conservation aspects. The objective of this study was to examine the contribution of homegardens towards of biodiversity conservation. Homegarden plant diversity assessment was done. A simple random sampling method was used to select 45 homegardens. Diversity indices were used for analysis. A total of 79 plant species belonging to 41 families were identified. Family Fabaceae and Rutaceae have a relatively higher number of species (6 species each). In terms of habit, (34%) of the species were herbs followed by trees (30%), shrubs (27%) and climbers (9%). Farmers manage both exotic (61%) and indigenous (39%), from which 57% were food and 43% nonfood plant species. The Shannon, Simpson and evenness diversity indexes were 3.27, 0.053 and 0.87 respectively. Coffea arabica was the most frequent (86.67%) species followed by Persea americana (68.89) and Catha edulis (64.44) in homegardens of the area. This study suggests that homegardens contribute to plant biodiversity conservation in the study area. However, due to few market-oriented crops concentration, biodiversity of the system have been affected. Thus, gardeners should be encouraged to cultivate versatile plants in the practice for effective biodiversity conservation.