Abstract:
In most parts of Ethiopia, people are dependent on eucalyptus as a source of woodlots, fuel,
constructing houses as well as for socio-economic benefits. Due to this, eucalyptus
plantations expand from time to time in the highland areas of Ethiopia, and the conversion of
farmlands into eucalyptus woodlots has raised a great concern. However, the impact and the
trend of eucalyptus plantation on agricultural land have rarely studied. Hence, the main
objective of this study is to assess the impacts of the expansion of Eucalyptus plantation on
agricultural land in the highland areas of Dega Damot District, Ethiopia. The research relied
on a mixed-research approach. Both socio-economic and spatial data were utilized. The
socio-economic data were analyzed using descriptive statistics. Supervised image
classification with a maximum likelihood algorithm was employed to classify land use/land
cover types. The spatial data analysis result indicated that grazing land and bush lands are
declined overtime, whereas the areal coverage of farmland was increased from 71.79% in
1990 to 80.16% in 2014 and it declined from 2014 to 2021 by 4.08% of change. In contrary,
eucalyptus plantations were expanding throughout the study period. Eucalyptus has expanded
from 1.11% in 1990 to 5.33% in 2021, with 352.47% change. Grazing land was decreased
from 1990 to 2021 with 62.39% change. Bush land decreased from 14.20% in 1990 to 6.8%
in 2021. The empirical data analysis result also indicated that the majority (90.7%) of the
communities are planting eucalyptus rather than other indigenous trees. According to the
key-respondents the eucalyptus tree are planting in degraded land, on grazing land, along
roadside, on woodlands, around the course of streams, and on farm land. About 84.5% of the
respondents still have the intention to plant more eucalyptus in the future due to economic
importance of eucalyptus identified as the main driving force of expansion. This shows that
communities are intensively converting their farmland to eucalyptus woodland and this
creates a huge negative impact on agricultural land. These call an intervention and effective
agricultural land use planning and management policies in accordance with eucalyptus
plantation.