BY LAKACHEW ATINAFU
Gedeos save nature as it saves them in turn. The Gedeos’ Agroforestry put in place environmental protection, preserving the ecosystem. Trees are more than anything.
A son has to get the permission of his father to cut off a tree and; he is expected to nurture seedlings that substitute the tree. Then a Gedeo father permits the cutting after reassuring that the son grows a mature plant.
This inherent tradition of
the Gedeo ethnic groups in the southeast corridor of SNNPS, Ethiopia helped
them to maintain the eco system of the area for ages.
The tradition is one of the supreme issues incorporated in the Balle System of Gedeo-traditional administration which is still functional. Such unique environmental protection and stewardship towards nature help the Gedeo to be a potential eco-tourism site.
The Gedeo adopt three categories of plantation based on altitudinal differences ranging from cool to temperate as well as semi desert climatic clusters.
The cool areas are afforested and reforested by typical indigenous plants while the temperate and semi desert zone are growers of coffee, false banana and banana.
What makes the Gedeo ethnic ethno-botanical belief and environmental protection more unique is that the people, animals and wild animals live together to the extent that they seemed to have signed agreements not to degrade the environment.
The Gedeo agro-forestry has also one of the factors that enabled small holders to produce specialty coffee such as Yirga-Cheffee coffee, a coffee with unique flavor and able to be sold with a staggering price at international coffee competition.
On the recent occasion as part of celebrating the Gedeos New Year Daraaro, Hirut Kassaw (Ph.D), Minister of Culture and Tourism said that the people of Gedeo and relevant authorities are incumbent upon duties to preserve indigenous knowledge and values and pass them to the posterity.
Although Ethiopia is blessed with enormous values and culture that can be taken as heritages of humanity, these days citizenries are frequently observed yearning towards the unfavorable traditions from abroad. Hence, it is of paramount importance to enhance untapped values and cultures the country “the Land of Origin” is endowed with.
Restu Yirdaw, Deputy Chief of the Southern Nations Nationalities and Peoples’ State (SNNPS) on his part said that the Balle System, (Gedeos Traditional Governance) has contributed a lot in environment protection strengthening co-existence among other people and nurturing harmony.
“Gedeos save nature and nature saves them” Shiferaw Bogale, has also said that the present complex system agro-forestry is not constructed simply by combining the components. Instead, through empirical observation by farmers, the integration process reached evolutionary maturity, with beneficial interactions. The optimization of spatial and temporal arrangement of the components is embedded and transferred orally along the chain of generations.
Gedeo Zonal Administration has been marking its New Year known as Daraaro over January and February through organizing series of events mainly envisaging the enhancement of eco-tourism and promoting the inherent ethno botanical belief.
Albeit Gedeo Administrational Zone in SNNPS is endowed with a number of natural blessings, cultural values; tourism development is still crawling due to inadequate infrastructure and lack of potable water, said local leaders and traditional chiefs.
As part of celebrating the traditional New Year, the Gedeo ethnic group, authorities and traditional administrators have carried out series of events to enhance tourism development and promote enormity of values and cultures and thereby inscribe them at UNESCO’s World Heritage List as tangible and intangible heritages of humanity.
The Stelae of Tututi Tutufela-ancient cemeteries-are one of the preferred tourist attraction sites along with the Gedeo Unique Agro Forestry and great concern for environment.
The origin of the Gedeo agroforestry system is uncertain; studies stated that it descended from shifting cultivation 5000 years ago. But it is clear that the geographic and demographic situation of the Gedeo landscape led to the agroforestry system.
As the population increased, farmers had too little land to continue with specialized production of staple crops, cash crops, and supplementary crops cultivated separately. Unlike in other home garden agroforestry systems, the Gedeo people do not use their home gardens for supplementary crops such as fruits and vegetables alone.
Instead, all forms of crops for example, staple crops such as enset (false banana) and maize; cash crops such as coffee (Coffea arabica) and chat (Catha edulis a stimulant plant); fruits; and vegetables are cultivated together.
Trees are also another important resource for the livelihood of the farmers. With the increasing population, the communal forest system used previously is not sustainable for Gedeo farmers. Thus, trees are also integrated with the crops on the same unit of land. Livestock is the other component of the Gedeo agroforestry system. Crops such as enset, bananas and trees such as Millettia ferruginea are used as source of food, as documents.
The cultural and archeological amenities in the area are the living witness of long time human–nature intervention. Among them, the Chelba Tutti, Sede Tuttefella, and Sakarosodo megalithic sites and the Odola Gelma Ancient Rock Engraving Site can be mentioned.
The Gedeo has also a traditional structure of ranks and age classes called Baalle, similar to the egalitarian Geda System of neighboring Guji Oromo, according to studies conducted by Abyot and Tadesse.
The Geda System is the oldest living traditional socio-political, religious, cultural, and environmental institution for managing common pool resources.
The similarity between the two systems shows the role of Baalle in natural resource management.
All over the Gedeos, inherent agroforestry and ethno botanical belief is a latent resource for eco-tourism and can make Gedeo and the country preferred tourist destination.
Local Authorities said that they are vigorously working to promote such tourist attraction sites and reap lucrative benefits from the sector adding that Gedeo is waiting for the recommendation of UNESCO submitting all the necessary documents to inscribe cultures and values as tangible and intangible heritages of humanity.
The Ethiopian Herald February 23/2021
