Impact of traditional gold mining activity on composition and diversity of the Vegetation and perception of the community in kafta-sheraro national Park, north western Tigray, Ethiopia

Gold mining brings several benefits to developing countries like Ethiopia, which could be manifested mainly as employment opportunity and income generation but simultaneously there has been high negative impact on the environment especially on the biodiversity. This study was conducted to investigate the impacts of the ongoing traditional gold mining (TGM) on the natural vegetation in the Kafta-Shiraro National Park (KSNP). A comparative vegetation analysis was conducted between the unmined (UM) and mined (M) sites of the Park to see the impact of TGM. Data were collected from 30quadrats in the unmined and mined areas of the Park, each with 20 m x 20 m for trees and 5mx 5m for shrubs. In addition, 1 m x 1m sub-quadrats were laid within the 5mx 5m quadrat to sample herbaceous species. To assess the perception of the community towards the impact of TGM on plant specieswas carried out using a group discussion and on-site interview with the miners. A total of40 plant species were identified belonging to 31 genera and 20 Families from the unmined (UM) and mined (M) sites of the Park. Trees accounted 47.5% (19 species), shrubs 15% (6 species) and herbs 37.5% (15 species).The value of Shannon diversity index (H') and evenness (E) in the UMsites of Kafta-Sheraro National Park were 1.73 and 0.67, respectively. Whereas, H' and E values in Marea were 1.37 and 0.48, respectively.The species richness of UM area was 34 and in M area were 21. As the result obtained from the formula of Coefficient of similarity in unmined and mined area was 0.43 for tree species, 0.68 and 0.47 for shrub and herbaceous species respectively there for there was dissimilar distribution of tree, shrub and herbaceous species at all. In general, the TGM activities were created significance difference in the vegetation composition between UM and M sites, indicating that M significantly affected the vegetation composition of Kafta-Shiraro National Park. Therefore, it was recommended that, vegetation recovery be implemented in the National Park through proper planning and management of protection and prevention of the area from M activities. Different management strategies could be implemented like, creating alternative job opportunity to the miners and reforestation of degraded lands (M areas) should be carried out to help reclaim the vegetation cover and raise the densities of lost species of the natural vegetation