Class and landscape level habitat fragmentation analysis in the Bale mountains national park, southeastern Ethiopia

The changes of natural habitat structure and function due to human interference is hastening worldwide, it compulsory preserve biological resources in a protected system. This study aims measure the landscape ecological extent fragmentation Bale mountains national park. land use/land cover change was determined by interpreting 1985, 1995, 2005 2017 Landsat images with ArcGIS 10.3, selected structural metrics analyzed using FRAGSTATS 4.2.1. All classes showed declining trend, except farmland, grassland depicted highest area reduction. From 1985 grassland, Erica, forestland, afro-alpine were decreased 9.36 %, 0.26 0.06 0.01 respectively. Whereas, farmland increased 43.67 %. characterized as progressively fragmented since signified escalated value patch number (40.22 %), area-weighted mean shape index (18.84 edge density (22.27 %) declined size (28.68 core (10.60 over period. Considering this result, there high loss available for dependent species, particularly Mountain nyala grasslands woodlands, Ethiopian wolf regions, monkey bamboo forest. Both forestland need conservation priority these habitats most lost area.