Community Resource Uses and Ethiopian Wolf Conservation

Abstract People who perceive economic benefits and enjoy unrestricted access to natural resources tend to sup-port ecosystem conservation efforts. Our study explores whether this remains true in remnant patches of Afroalpine ecosystem in North Ethiopia, where communal land pro-vides valuable natural resources for the local communities and also sustain small populations of the endangered Ethiopian wolf (Canis simensis). Questionnaires were de-signed to assess ecological and socio-economic character-istics of the livelihoods of the Amhara people living in Mount Abune Yosef and their attitudes toward Afroalpine and Ethiopian wolf conservation. Of the 120 households interviewed, selected randomly from across eight villages, 80 % benefited from natural resources by grazing their livestock and harvesting firewood and grasses. The ma-jority (90 %) also suffered from livestock predation by Ethiopian wolves and common jackals (Canis aureus) and crop raiding by geladas (Theropithecus gelada), birds, and rodents, yet more than half reported a positive attitudes toward Ethiopian wolves (66 %). People with positive at-titudes tended to live close to the communal land, to own more livestock, and to be unaffected by conflict. Many also recognized the need to protect the Afroalpine habitats of Abune Yosef (71 %), and this attitude predominated among the literate, households that owned land, had smaller herds and were further away. We discussed how people’s attitudes were modulated by human-wildlife conflicts and by the benefits derived from the access to natural resources in communal land, and the implications for the conservation of Afroalpine ecosystem and the flagship Ethiopian wolf