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POTENTIAL RESOURCES, LOCAL COMMUNITIES’ ATTITUDES AND PERCEPTIONS FOR OUTDOOR RECREATION AND ECOTOURISM DEVELOPMENT IN URBAN FRINGE HAREGO AND BEDEDO CONSERVED FOREST, SOUTH WOLLO ZONE, ETHIOPIA

The study identified the potential resources and examined the local communities’ attitudes and perception towards outdoor recreation and ecotourism development in the urban fringe Harego and Bededo conserved forest, Ethiopia. Mixed research approach was applied along with descriptive and sequential explanatory design. Questionnaire, interview and personal observations were data gathering instruments. Consequently, 336 respondents were randomly selected while key informants were selected purposefully. Simple descriptive analysis, crosstabs and independent t test has been applied to analyze the quantitative data while the qualitative data was analyzed using interpretative analysis technique. The study revealed that the areas have plethora of fauna and flora resources, amazing landscapes and are huge potentials for outdoor recreation and ecotourism development. More significantly, there is positive attitude and perception from the local people which is important for outdoor recreation and ecotourism, their intentions of direct involvement for the development necessities are also very promising while there is a statistically significant difference between high school and below holders (Mean=18.11, sig. 0.001) and college diploma and above holders (Mean=20.89, sig. 0.001).