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.