The establishment of Forestry Knowledge Management Center (FKMC)
Ethiopia has been implementing different forest conservation and landscape restoration measures including area closure, afforestation/reforestation, biosphere reserve, Participatory Forest Management (PFM), etc. to address the growing demands for forest products and services, while mitigating climate change. To affect this Ethiopia has put in place key policies and strategies that include Climate Resilient Green Economy strategy (2011); National Forest Sector Development Program (2018); the Green Legacy Initiative (launched in 2019); the updated Nationally Determined Contribution (2021); and the Ten-Year Development Plan (2022). Additionally, legal frameworks such as Forest Conservation and Utilization Proclamation (2018), National REDD+ Strategy (2018), and Forest Regulation (2024) have been enacted. The government of Ethiopia has also committed to international agreements such as the UN Sustainable Development Goals; the Convention on Biodiversity; the Bonn Challenge for landscape restoration; the New York Declarations on Forests; the Great Green Wall initiative and the African Union’s Agenda 2063.
Although Ethiopia has developed and implemented a range of policies, programs, and strategies that provide an enabling environment for sustainable forest management, the forestry sector continues to face significant challenges- among them being the lack of reliable data and accessible knowledge can be mentioned. This gap undermines effective planning, monitoring, and decision-making, ultimately limiting the impact of these otherwise well-intentioned initiatives
Indeed, the emerging demand for timely, accurate, and comprehensive data, information, and knowledge to support informed decision-making in forest management highlights a critical gap in Ethiopia's forestry sector. Despite the growing complexity of forest governance and the need for evidence-based planning, there remains a significant lack of real-time data and a fragmented approach to data handling. Moreover, the absence of a dedicated and permanent institution for systematic data and knowledge management has hindered coordinated efforts in research, monitoring, and policy development. These challenges underscore the urgent need to establish a Knowledge Management Center at the Wondo Genet College of Forestry and Natural Resources (WGCFNR), which can serve as a central hub for data integration, knowledge sharing, and capacity building to support sustainable forest management and policy formulation. The establishment of FKMC is, thus, necessary because Ethiopia currently lacks a dedicated institution responsible for collecting, storing and sharing such information on forest and landscape restoration related activities, resulting in limited data availability on forestry and natural resources.
Then why FKMC is needed at Wondo Genet College of Forestry and Natural Resources?
Wondo Genet College of Forestry and Natural Resources (WGCFNR) is a well-suited place to establish and manage the center as it is well rooted institution in forestry and natural resources education, research and community engagement. As one of the founding colleges of Hawassa University, it has long-standing reputation as a premier forestry institution in Ethiopia with extensive experiences in teaching, research and community services in forestry and natural resources. WGCFNR started teaching with a diploma program and currently runs more than 30 programs from BSc to PhD degree offering different types of disciplines in forestry and natural resources. The college has been also offering several short-term trainings in collaboration with governmental and non-governmental organizations. The college has built its capacity continuously and currently there are over 50 PhD and about 85 MSc holder staff on duty. Large number of research articles have been published in international and national peer reviewed scientific journals. Several community service works have also been undertaken by the staff members of the college.
WGCFNR has
- strong educational, research and outreach capacities
- Longstanding national and international collaborations
o The college has also established and maintained strong collaboration networks with various national and international academic and development institutions. Just to name a few: Ethiopian Forestry Development (EFD), Ethiopian Biodiversity Institute (EBI), Ministry of Urban and Infrastructure (MUI), Ethiopian Environmental Protection Authority (EPA), Addis Ababa University HoAREC, Farm Africa, Dresden University of Technology
(TU Dresden) and Hamburg University ( Germany), Swedish University of Agricultural Science (SLU), Norwegian University of Life Sciences (NMBU), Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO)-Ethiopia, CIFOR, Deutsche Gesellschaft für International Zusammenarbeit (GIZ), Global Green Growth Institute (GGGI) Ethiopia, etc.
- Stable ICT infrastructure
o High speed internet
o Modern and with high-capacity servers and backup drive
o Stable computer Lab for the last two decades
- Exiting knowledge sharing experiences
o Wondo Genet staff participate in different national policies strategies such as CRGE,
o GGGI related issues activities and future actions
o National forest inventory
o Rural and urban cadastral activities (training and knowledge sharing and advising)
o GIS sequential trainings
o Trainings in renewable Energy for different local, subnational (districts) , zonal and regional experts and practitioners
o Consultancy services to private industries, small and medium level enterprise
Furthermore, the college has been developing and upgrading its facilities over the last four decades and that made it stronger and reliable public institution. Such facilities include for example, arboretum, a model forestry nursery, plantation forest of different species and natural forest, agroforestry demonstration, sawmills, and beekeeping. In terms of indoor facilities, the college has general and specialized laboratories equipped with modern technologies (e.g., gas chromatography machine), GIS and remote sensing facilities, computer lab and server facilities, among others. The college has been also serving as a national MRV capacity center for enhancing the nation’s greenhouse gas accounting and monitoring activities. In line with these, different training facilities, state-of-the-art field, and laboratory equipment for the purposes of measurement and analysis received and have been made functional. These include GNSS/GPS equipment, UAV drone, as well as other laser-based distance/height/angle measuring equipment.