Illegal Harvesting of Locally Endangered Olea europaea Subsp. cuspidata (Wall. ex G. Don) Cif. and Its Causes in Hugumburda Forest, Northern Ethiopia

Olea europaea L. subsp cuspidata (Wall. ex G. Don) Cif., an endangered tree species in dry Afromontane forests, has multiple uses in local communities in Ethiopia, making it susceptible to overexploitation. The study investigated the rates and causes of O. europaea harvesting in the Hugumburda National Forest Priority Area (NFPA). We measured the diameter at stump height of harvested stumps from 70 (20 × 20 m) plots and estimated the time since cutting to determine the biomass of O. europaea wood harvested annually in the forest. We performed a socioeconomic survey of the reasons for wood harvesting by conducting 163 stratified random individual interviews in the villages surrounding the forest. The average annual quantity of O. europaea wood illegally harvested from the forest was estimated to be 430 kg ha−1, mainly for farm implements, fuel wood, and fumigation purposes. The results of a General Linear Model (GLM) show that the extraction of O. europaea wood in the forest is higher at higher elevations than at lower, and the number of O. europaea stumps in the forest is higher at an intermediate distance to the villages. We show that O. europaea is harvested in the forest despite the fact that the forest is protected. Permanent sample plots should be established to monitor the increment.