Ethiopians have already planted over 2.6 billion trees this winter season. The government has set a goal of planting a total of more than four billion trees before the season elapses. The national plantation program has officially been launched by Prime Minister Dr. Abiy Ahmed on May 26, 2019.
Since then, the public has been set in action to plant 40 tree seedlings per head. As part of the same national program, more than 200 million saplings are going to be planted in a single day, on Monday 29, July 2019.The number might appear mind-boggling as it has caught the attention of the international community. But for Ethiopians, that is not the case.
To begin with, green legacy is not a new phenomenon for Ethiopians. It is highly entrenched into their diversified cultures. Of course, one may argue that we had temporarily departed from our long-stayed tradition due to some factors such as poverty, modernization and urbanization. But that was just for a while.
There is a proverb in Afaan Oromo that literally means ‘The forest is life, so no one should harm life.” The proverb highlights how life is purely associated with the intrinsic value of trees instead of with the benefits that they would offer to human beings. Actually, the proverb is the social code of the Oromo wherein cutting of a tree is considered as killing of a person!
Another proverb of the Oromo: “At the side of a falling tree, there must be another growing.’ This indicates how our age-old environmental consciousness has been kept intact: “before you cut a tree, make sure that there is another tree growing next to it” (or else you shouldn’t attempt to cut!-that is what it implies).
Similarly, the Sidama, the Gedeo and the Kefa peoples, like other Ethiopian communities, make similar demands for plantation of at least five trees before a single tree is to be cut off.In general, the indigenous knowledge of Ethiopians as far as forest conservation is concerned aims at alerting people to become keen observers, enthusiastic, skillful and active participants in the wise usage and conservation of forests.
So, due attention should be given to those indigenous values. In view of this, Prime Minister Dr. Abiy Ahmed’s initiative, National Green Development Action Program should be hailed as the right step in restoring not only our forests but also our age-old traditions of plantation, nurturing, preservation and conservation of trees.
Likewise, as human lives mainly depend on the environment and become interwoven across the globe, the world should heed to and scale up Ethiopian’s indigenous knowledge of forestry. Because, every human kind should understand, the way Ethiopians do, that environment refers to human beings and their surroundings which include air, water, land, animals and the entire ecosystem without which no one can exist.
Equally, the world should learn from Ethiopians that tree plantation is a collective work; which enhances a deep sense of friendship, social solidarity and common purpose. The wisdom in long-held culture about humans and their relation to the physical environment in this regard need attentions to conserve nature.
As well, every nation must work collaboratively to make the land an oasis luxuriant with large trees, opulent and dark greenery used to shoot up from the soil because of the people’s care to the environment.
In this globalization era, nations must share good values so as to be more unified and sustain unity for mutual purposes. And even more than that, what most saves and ties together the world is importing of indigenous knowledge of planting and conservation of trees. It is time for the world to reckon our values which conceive that the existence of human beings is being tied up with the environment!
The Ethiopian Herald July 26/2019
