By Kathleen Guillozet and John C. Bliss

Foreign investment in Ethiopia?s forestry sector is currently limited, but agricultural investments that affect forests, largely through forest clearing, are commonplace. We describe the nature of forest investments and outline the challenges and opportunities associated with implementing them. Given the key role that forests play in rural livelihoods, new tenure arrangements will have significant implications for communities located at the forest-farm interface. Evidence from a case study in the Arsi Forest area of Oromia Regional State is used to examine historic and contemporary forest benefit distributions and investigate the the potential for conflict over competing forest access claims associated with new investments.