THE EFFECT OF POPULATION DYNAMICS ON FOREST COVER IN DARO LEBU WEREDA, WEST HARARGHE ZONE, OROMIA REGION, ETHIOPIA

Forest is one of renewable land properties which endowed with numerous resources that are valuable to man. The quality of the environment is constantly losing its status due to increase in population size in most countries of the world. The general objective of this study was to assess the effect of population dynamics on forest cover in West Hararghe Zone in general and Daro Labu Wereda (DLW) in particular. Systematic random sampling technique was used to select the target population of this study whose total number was 364 households from four kebeles of DLW. Questionnaire, interview, FGD and satellite imagery used as data gathering tools for this study. The quantitative data of this study were analyzed using descriptive statistics and the qualitative data were discussed and interpreted through narration. As the result in this study a mixed method was used. This study is triangulation study in its design. The study was found out that population dynamics had contributed a lot to deforestation of the wereda under the study through agricultural land expansion, settlement, fuel wood gathering and illegal tree cutting. Thus due to population growth, lack of alternative livelihood approach, ruthless profit making, lack of economic transformation human encroachment and lack of alternative sources of energy. Population growth had contributed greatly to forest deforestation especially as it affected the forest covers. The major findings were observed that expansion for cultivated and settlement LULC classes rapidly increased from1973 to 2013 on the contrary forest and shrub lands decreased in DLW due to population dynamics and human encroachment in the forest cover. Therefore, there is an urgent need with government for the various stakeholders in environmental resource management to provide mechanism that can prevent the forest cover from further reduction in the study area.

Moving towards nature? Exploring progressive pathways to engage children and young people from disadvantaged backgrounds in nature-based activities.

This study explores Pathways to engage children and young people from disadvantaged backgrounds in nature-based activities. It discusses challenges in balancing multiple demands on National Parks to protect biodiversity and meet human recreational needs, suggesting that regional parks that combine wild and managed areas offer a better solution than doing nothing and allowing yet further human encroachment on 'pristine' natural environments. The study concludes how the participants of the study frames and/or defines the progress in relation to nature.

The Human, The Animal and the Prehistory of COVID-19*

In Asia, pangolins have generated a rich set of indigenous oral traditions. These contrast with the often confused, or failed, colonial and Western scientific practices of classifying, domesticating and collecting the pangolin. More recently this long-standing encounter between the pangolin and human has shifted into exponential killing. The pangolin has become the mammal which is most trafficked by humans. This trade has been a global one, a fact that is important to remember given the racist ideas and inequalities that have been highlighted through the experience of the COVID-19 pandemic. The changing relationship between the pangolin and the human in modern history is used here as a window onto the interlinked histories of the pandemic and environmental crisis, both of which arose partly from human encroachment into biodiverse and forested areas, including pangolin habitats. The phases of the pangolin–human relationship can be read for the preconditions of these interlinked crises that face the planet and its historians in 2020. It is vital that historians respond confidently and fully to causation at the interspecies frontier without using the pandemic to mount theoretically naive ‘compare and contrast’ exercises with past disease events to provide lessons for the present. A post-pandemic historiography will surely be interdisciplinary, with critical, philosophical and collaborative engagement with scientists.

Land use change and livestock revolution as contributors to Coronavirus emergence risk

The recorded number of epidemics from emerging diseases is increasing at alarming rates, posing new threats on human societies. Despite the consensus on the existence of a nexus between emerging diseases and human pressure on the environment, the link to global and regional trends in food demand and agricultural production remains poorly understood. The ongoing severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) pandemic (COVID-19) is no difference. SARS-related coronaviruses are mostly discovered in Asian horseshoe bat species. It is unclear to what extent the transmission to humans is facilitated by ongoing land use and animal husbandry trends underlying recent shifts in the food system. Forest fragmentation, human encroachment into wildlife habitats as a result of expanding urbanization, cropland, and concentrated animal farming are hypothesized to favor the emergence of zoonotic diseases. In the regions of the world populated by Asian horseshoe bats (>28.5 million km2), we analyze comprehensive high-resolution (30m-1000m) datasets on forest cover, cropland distribution, livestock density, human population, human settlements, bat species’ distribution, and land-use changes to explain why China was and remains at risk for SARS-coronavirus outbreaks. We show that in China areas populated by horseshoe bats exhibit statistically significant higher forest fragmentation and concentrations of livestock (e.g. poultry and pigs) and humans than other countries. Moreover, regions of China populated by horseshoe bats are hotspots of forest fragmentation, livestock density, and human settlements. These results are consistent with the notion that population growth and increasing meat consumption associated with urbanization and economic growth have expanded the footprint of agriculture, leading to human encroachment in wildlife habitat and increased livestock density in areas adjacent to fragmented forest patches. These results indicate that conditions in China put it at high risk for SARS-related coronavirus transmission to humans because land use patterns reduce the distance between wildlife reservoir species and humans.