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.