Forest Dependency Among Forest User Communities In And Around Belete-Gera Forest, Southwest Ethiopia

Understanding socioeconomic aspect helps in designing forest resource management through improving rural livelihood. The paper aims at investing forest use pattern addressing magnitude of forest contribution, level of forest dependency and household strategy. Data were collected from 127 households through structured questionnaire. The study result showed that forest income contribution account for 49 % of the combined household income. The magnitude increases with wealth categories. Better off households are benefiting more relative to poor households. Middle and rich people are more forest dependent relative to poor people. Better off households depend on forest for specialization instead of diversification. The conventional wisdom of the poor are forest dependents are forest product specific. Forest based livelihood improvement must take into account access to forest and resource utilization pattern.