Understanding Land Use/Land Cover Dynamics in and Surrounding the Ethiopian Church Forests

A better understanding of the causes and consequences of complex changes of land use/land cover (LULC) in a given landscape call for global attention for scientific research. This chapter reviews the state-of-the-art of scientific knowledge on LULC dynamics within and in the surrounding areas of Ethiopian Church Forests (ECFs). We conducted the review using systematically selected articles on LULC changes associated with ECFs, with additional literature to contextualize the broad scope of our understanding of the changes. Our review highlights approaches used for change studies, overall LULC changes and underling reasons/drivers of changes. Our study demonstrated that remote sensing and ground inventory based approaches are essential tools for change detection within as well as in the surrounding areas of ECFs. We revealed a mix of forest cover changes within and the ECFs. For increasing trends in forest area, the existence of stone walls, exclosures, intense rehabilitation, and protection activities were mentioned as major drivers. Conversion to croplands, population pressure, livestock grazing, government policies, isolation, and small sizes were the most common drivers for declining trends of forest areas. Further research challenges, and opportunities within and surrounding the ECFs are outlined.