Social and cultural interests and practices
The church forests are islands that have been preserved for cultural reasons until today and are still valuable refuges for the culture, as well as for biodiversity. Based on interviews with the local community living in the villages around the church forest, current willingness to protect this forest fragment was evaluated. The obtained results will provide information on the value of church forests and potential conflicts between generations (modern life of the young generation vs. traditional practices and ways of life), as well as conflicts between benefits and protection are identified. The supervision of this working package was mainly led by Alexandra Reith (University of Vechta), in close collaboration with Solomon Legesse. The following students actively joined this working group: Dmiss Shitaye, Teshagar Aki, Yemiyamirew Zeyede, Finn Eric Determeyer, Jana Wittke, Joeta Ndwiga, Debarati Ganguly.
