I recently visited the rural village where I grew up. The visit was somewhat different from the other visits, I made earlier. This time, I focused on the environment, the rivers, the farmlands, pasture lands, hills and mountains.
I also had the chance to see local markets, attend social meetings, talk with villagers and briefly discuss about the local environment today, the changes they witnessed in the past and impacted their livelihoods.
I, myself, remember the situation of the same area, village, river, vegetation and even the same people about 50 years ago. Interestingly, my memories about the situation today and 50 years ago were very similar with descriptions made by the local villagers.
Do you remember the small river that used to flow through the village? It is no more there. What about the forest patch on the hill, our source of wood? There are no more trees but just rocks. The questions and answers continued and the list was long.
What I learned from the community’s perception of environmental degradation and the effects of adverse changes on their livelihood was one of my motivations to write this article.
As we can all imagine, environmental degradation, undoubtedly, is a serious problem that requires urgent attention. At a time of promising political reforms taking place in the country, it would be wise to push Ethiopia’s environmental agenda forward to make change happen.
I felt, therefore, that sharing my opinions and views on the state of environmental degradation in Ethiopia is timely and important. It is also my personal desire to ignite interest among experts, researchers and all the concerned at large in order to create a platform for exchange of ideas.
To achieve the desired environmental change, we need to look deeper and wider into our environmental history and examine the complex and interconnected environmental problems of the country.
The problem is by no means easy and simple. There is always a price to pay. By prioritizing the challenges, I am confident that we can pave the way for the long term solutions.
Before concentrating on the practical challenges ahead of us, admitting that we have misused our natural resources and damaged the environment would be quite a good start. Moreover, we should take collective responsibility for most of the undesired effect on the environment that we observe today.
By carefully analyzing our present environmental situation and documenting reliable scientific information, we will be in a position to unlock the various opportunities that mother-nature and society has kept in them for us.
Our confidence for finding lasting solution lies in the physical, biological, human and social diversity of Ethiopia to bring back human activities in equilibrium with nature. This piece, however, does not attempt to review the efforts attempted and being made in the country to alleviate environmental problems.
It is also not the objective of this article to evaluate the activities and performance of government and non-government organizations working on the environment in Ethiopia.
The main aim is to highlight the major problems of environmental degradation, consequences and future implications to lay the foundation for sustainable environmental change.
It is also to convince all citizens and ensure that the environment and our natural resources are well protected, conserved and managed carefully for the present and future generations.
Though Ethiopia is possibly more vulnerable to adverse effects of global climate change, it is my personal view that it will be wiser to focus more on solving the local problems. As global problems require global solutions, together with the world community, we shall be proactive to contribute to the efforts of saving the planet.
For a discussion on the Ethiopian environment, it is logical to start with the status of our soils as the soil is the basic material that all life forms directly or indirectly depend on. The diverse rocks gave us several fertile soil types.
Ethiopia’s dissected terrain with extensive steep slopes naturally favors soil erosion by water. The most affected areas are, therefore, hills, mountains and slanting landscapes.
Soil loss in Ethiopia is estimated to be about 1 billion m3/year. Besides the slanting landscapes, cultivation on steep slopes causes accelerated erosion resulting in decreased productive capacity of land. Soil erosion affects every ecosystem and life forms, agricultural lands, grazing areas and biodiversity.
Biodiversity is important as it provides essential ecosystem services. The crucial direct and indirect use value of biodiversity could be realized only if we are capable of protecting and conserving our biodiversity. It is apparent that the prevailing biodiversity crisis is real and much of the loss in biodiversity is a direct consequence of human actions. The decrease in species populations currently taking place in Ethiopia can lead to massive species extinction including our forest trees.
A vast diversity of vegetation formations exists in Ethiopia from Afromontane vegetation (mountain vegetation) to desert (dry lowland vegetation) and from dry woodlands to moist evergreen forests and wetland vegetation. An amazing diversity of plants and other living organisms which are dependent on and associated with the different vegetation types need our attention to make the resources well known, documented and preserved.
Our forests are vanishing at a rapid scale. The demand for fuel and construction wood and forest clearing for crop production are the main reasons behind deforestation. The level of deforestation, 40% natural forest cover about 100 years ago has dwindled to less than 3% today.
Experts estimate that the current rate of deforestation to about 160,000 -200,000 ha/year and recommend the need for urgent action. In some regions, even the remnant forest patches (church forests) and the indigenous tree species contained in them are severely threatened. In general, forests play a variety of roles in maintaining environmental quality and ecosystem health.
It is apparent that developing renewable energy sources such as solar and wind energy may replace use of wood and provide some relief for native forests. It has become common to see women and girls collecting cattle dung for use as source of household fuel. Using dung from fields, however, should by no means be an alternative energy source as it reduces fertility of pasture lands.
Overgrazing has left grazing (pasture) lands with reduced biomass productivity and reduced biodiversity and may eventually lead to desertification. It is well known that Ethiopia is home to one of the largest livestock populations in Africa.
On the other hand, pasture (grazing) land is under increasing pressure from high livestock population. It may be advisable that farmers manage and possibly reduce their livestock population to save the environment.
Unlike domestic animals, Ethiopia’s wildlife population is declining and the national parks are relatively in bad shape. Ethiopia has more than 20 Wildlife Natural Parks and sanctuaries; however, the status of wildlife habitats and national parks is very low.
Though there is some variation among national parks, most of them are under severe threat due to undesired human activities in the national parks such as charcoal making, domestic animals, settlements and crop cultivation.
While discussing about wildlife and national parks in Ethiopia, we often encounter individuals with erroneous concepts that undermine the value and purpose of nature conservation in general and wildlife conservation, in particular.
It is common to hear, for instance, that human beings must have priority over wild animals. Such views are purely anthropocentric. Preaching that all life forms are created (meant) for human beings is not only misleading but also dangerous both in principle and practice.
By conserving the amazing diversity of Ethiopia’s wild animals, in diverse landscapes and ecosystems, there lies another very important opportunity of exploiting the untapped potential of ecotourism in Ethiopia.
In this connection, the contribution that the Natural (Zoological) History Museum, Addis Ababa University is making for wildlife education, research and conservation deserves recognition. About 60,000 to 80,000 school children per year visit and learn from the zoological specimens housed in this small museum.
The museum deserves support and should be strengthened so that it can have the capacity to widen its physical space, increase its wildlife specimen collections and eventually strengthen its contribution for Ethiopia’s fauna.
Herald December 11/2018
BY Dawit Abate (PhD)
