Results and discussion
Drivers of land
degradation
At the level of a managed plot, in both SNNP and Amhara, poor soil
fertility was regarded by both men and women as one of the major root
causes of land degradation whilst at the landscape level, heavy rainfall
was perceived to be the root cause (Fig. 2). In Amhara, men think slop
drivers land degradation (soil erosion) while women think absence of
crop rotation drives land degradation at plot level. Both households
also perceived weeds to be causes of land degradation at plot level.
This might be because of its impact on productivity. In Amhara, there
were gender differences as more men indicated biophysical root causes
(e.g., erosion on cultivated slopes) whilst women considered land
management (e.g., lack of crop rotation/continuous cultivation) as the
key drivers of land degradation at landscape level. In the SNNP, men
attribute shallow soils to be prone to land degradation at plot level.
Women of Amhara during the FGD indicated that the lack of strategies to
control erosion led to degradation, which is less in areas with
conservation measures. They narrated that some areas prone to erosion
due to overgrazing, lack of cover crops and removal of crop residues.
The area receives heavy rainfall and strong winds that wipe away the top
fertile soils, depleting the nutrients. Apparently erosion is the most
common form of degradation with reports indicating annual soil loss of
between 42 to 300 t/ha/year (Gebreselassie et al., 2016). To arresting
erosion, the interventions focused on installing physical and biological
measures neglecting social and institutional dimensions including gender
inclusivity (Gebreselassie et al., 2016), which our study has found to
have a strong bearing on management.