To date, OFWE by concession owns and manages an estimated area of 1.75 million hectares of forestland, including 1.2 million ha of natural forest, 74,000 ha of forest plantations and 470,000 ha of other land types within the Oromia region. Re-demarcation of OFWE?s concession has been underway since 2009. Accordingly, about 2 million ha of forest land has already been re-demarcated and it is expected that this figure could rise significantly once the assessment is completed and other vegetation types such as woodlands are included.

For the ease of administration, OFWE has its headquarters in Addis Ababa, eight of its branch forest enterprises (Finfinne, Arsi, Wollega, Illu-Ababora, Jimma, Borana, Bale, Hararge) are found at the vicinity where the forest resources are found, and one forest industry (Shager) based in Addis Ababa.

As a governmental institution, OFWE closely works with different Ministries, State and Province and District level government institutions including the lowest administration systems at grass roots level. OFWE also collaborates with like-minded international and local organisations working in key areas of sustainable forest management, biodiversity conservation, climate change and adaptation and participatory natural resource management. OFWE also works with smallholder farmers who live in or around its forest estates.

Unlike the previous protectionist institutions that were implemented by armed guards to keep people out of the forest, OFWE works to promote the participation of local communities living in and around its concessions in forest and wildlife conservation activities, and in sharing the benefits derived from forest products and services. This strategy has greatly helped to improve the forest condition and livelihoods of the community living in the surrounding areas. 

OFWE, with involvement of local community and partner NGOs, has initiated REDD+ projects within its concessions with the aim of generating climate finance. With the support of Farm Africa and SOS Sahel, one its REDD+ projects - the Bale Mountains REDD+ project - has moved to the PDD (Project Design document) preparation stage with technical support extended from a consortium of consultants from the Nature Conservation Research Centre (NCRC, Ghana), the Institute for the Conservation and Sustainable Development of Amazonas (IDESAM, Brazil) and Oxford University (UK). OFWE has also been involved in the national REDD+ planning process. For example, it provided input during the R-PP development phase and is one of the initiators behind the Emission Reductions Programme (ER-P) for the Oromia region. It is also a member of the REDD+ Steering Committee.

This article was taken from the enterprise official website.