Conclusion

The study has established gender-differentiated experiences and perspectives on land degradation and impacts in Ethiopia. The experiences and perspective on degradation causes reveal how men and women perceive root causes of land degradation and form a basis of their effort towards land restoration and valuation of associated challenges and benefits. In northern Ethiopia, Crossland et al., (2018) found that the cultivation of sloping land was considered by farmers to be the major cause of degradation. Although Crossland et al. (2018) found gender differences in the mapping of degradation, our study reveals more salient issues as to how women and men perceive to be the root causes of degradation and thus could have a different understanding of land degradation and the respective restoration strategies. In Crosslandet al .’s research, women mapped more areas as degraded and some larger parcels under restoration compared to men. Our study identifies that women are particular on what they consider to be root causes, whilst men attribute degradation to more factors. Women attribute a moderate impact of land degradation on habitat quality than men who attribute restoration to the enhancement of biodiversity and pollinators.
Landscape restoration reduce the negative impact of land degradation and enhanced land productivity, resource availability and environmental health. The restoration interventions brought many advantages in terms of declining of soil erosion, enhancing fertility of land, and improving soil moisture, availability of livestock feed, fuelwood and trees/agroforestry. Restoration contributes a lot of farmers to change practice, the free grazing to cut and carry system and the complete harvesting of crop residue to partial and full retaining. Even though land degradation was very challenging in the past, nowadays the land degradation is decreasing. This is major because of the continuous awareness creation efforts by the NGOs and GO, the increase in farmers’ awareness as land is a scarce resource and understanding better on the advantage of restoration measures to improve the soil fertility and produce food from the existing plots. Constructing different SWC structures and integrating with grass and tree planting, maintaining natural trees and practising area closure and reducing free grazing contribute a lot to the decrease of land degradation.
Land, water and ecosystem degradation disproportionately affect marginalised communities and women. Consequently, it is essential to ensure that restoration initiatives do not further exacerbate marginalisation and inequalities. Land rights critically shape restoration opportunities and benefits that accrue primarily to those who hold land. Lack of secure land tenure can therefore exclude marginalised communities and women. Getting women’s experiences and views on restoration is key to proper land management. In the study although husbands did not perceive the occurrence of new weeds in restored landscapes, wives owing to their major involvement in weeding were able to detect and report incidence of new weed species. Capturing and considering women’s perspectives in policy goal formulation, planning of activities and evaluation is essential to improve the uptake of restoration practices and ensure the success and equity of restoration efforts.