BY LAKACHEW ATINAFU
While the earth urges consumers to care for the producers, Gedio Ethiopia responds with the deep-seated tradition considering trees as sacred entities aiming to maintain healthy planet and enjoying nature. Gedio situated in South Ethiopia is endowed with enormity of tradition to preserve nature and protect the environment.
Eshetu Worku, Communication Expert in South Nation Nationality and Peoples’ of Ethiopia (SNNPS) of Gedio Zonal Administration had a moment of togetherness with The Ethiopian Herald.
According to the expert,
statesmen along with the local administrators are striving and knocking on the
door of UNESCO to inscribe such both tangible and intangible heritages which
will believed to vigorously add some sort of sensuous beauty and environment
friendly atmosphere on earth.
As Gedio has long been adopting the tradition of treating their localities to the extent considering ‘producers’ informal saying green plants as a sole means of living, they have been determinant to give due concern to issues of environment and were also precognitive adversities followed due to failure to protect ecology.
As the inherent Gedio tradition trees are among the most respected entities, even killing a prey looking for an asylum inside a Songo is never forgiven evil among the community. The biodiversity within the forest is respected and protected as part of one’s body and existence.
That is why the Gedio has also adopted and criminalized killing birds and cutting trees without the recognition Geda Leaders-traditional administrators of the society. Members of the Gedeo are expected to plant more than two seedlings before cutting a tree.
Even eating foods and messing up forests inside trees is a taboo practice according to the age- long tradition of Gedio.
Furthermore, profiling a person and his family in relation to developing forests is also of paramount importance to get the will of the daughter in law families preferred for marriage relation.
Unlike the most common traditions in Ethiopia which consider cattle as assets, in Gedeo trees are considered as the primary assets to judge an individual. Hence, in marriage and other social relationship the ownership of indigenous tree is the prerequisite criterion to allow such societal bonds.
Apart from being one of rarely adopted traditions for keeping the balance of nature, the Gedio tradition has added something worth to the product and productivity of coffee and degraded soil.
There are also some forests which need supreme protection of the elderly and where no one is allowed to in. Such forests are believed to be home to herbs and potential for improved medications.
Traditional agroforestry system in Gedio Southern Ethiopia is a deep seated practice with sense stewardship towards the environment. The ethno botanical beliefs and practices of the community have been preserving forests for generations, as to the World Agroforestry.
Yosef Maru who had conducted studies on the ethnobotanical beliefs on the aforementioned district insisted that the Gedio’s sacred forests are conserved for ritual purposes, accompanied by a system of taboos, resulting in the sacred forests having higher tree diversity and better preservation than adjacent, non-sacred, farming habitats.’
The sacred forests are havens for critically threatened plants or trees not found in the adjacent lands, such as ‘gudubo’ (Aningeria adolfi-friedeicii), Podocarpus falcatus, Cordia africana, African cherry (Prunus africanum), Elgon teak (Olea welwitschii), and water berry (Syzygium guineense).
The Gedeo’s taboos include restrictions on the cutting of trees, killing of birds and injuring nature carelessly. These cultural practices and prohibition mechanisms have informally enhanced ecosystem conservation and protection.
However, religious monotheism, changes in social norms, erosion in ancestral beliefs and lack of documentation of the community’s indigenous knowledge are contributing to the degradation and erosion of environmental protection.
The introduction of Western religion has eroded the cultural values of the Gedio, weakening the value and respect given to beliefs, rituals, taboos and environmental ethics. Leaders of the Western religion – a form of Christian Protestantism – decreed that cultural beliefs and rituals were evil, ‘satanic’, forbidding attendance at rituals and entering sacred sites and dispensing with the rules regarding protection of the environment.
Some scholars recommended that to provide protection to the Gedio’s sustainable practices, the surrounding peoples, governmental officials, followers of the Western faith and, particularly, young people need to be educated in conservation awareness. The taboos, local practices, ancestral rules and traditional beliefs encouraged the conservation and management of natural resources and sustained the livelihoods of the community.
Scholars and leaders strongly believe that the local government should work closely with cultural elders and religious leaders to protect ritual sites, sacred forests and sacred trees in villages; all stakeholders, particularly the local government, should work together to enforce rules regarding preserving the remaining forests, indigenous practices and belief systems; indigenous ecological knowledge systems and cultural beliefs should be properly documented to ensure sustainability; the government and conservation agencies should support local communities who still practice traditional mechanisms of natural resource conservation and management through, for example, incentive schemes; documentation and inventory of sacred forests to better understand how they can be supported; additional protection and preservation is required, particularly, from unplanned or poorly planned infrastructure projects; eco-tourism, educational tours and even researchers have put adverse pressure on ritual sites by littering, harvesting medicinal plants for research and injuring sacred trees, hence, improved management plans are needed.
Aster Gebrekirstos who has been serving as the principal supervisor of studies on the sacred forests from the world agroforestry, said it showed that community institutions, traditional beliefs, taboos and local rules have played a large role in environmental protection and they should be maintained for the posterity.
The Ethiopian Herald January 2/2021
