Located about 120 kilometers southwest of Addis Ababa, Lake Wanchi is one of the beautiful places where many people spend leisure time. About 400 youths have organized themselves to provide service were engaging in the sector and providing service and benefiting them from ecotourism.
Diriba Atoma is one of the youth engaged in horse riding service at Wanchi Lake Ecotourism Association. “When we rent horse for tourists we promote our culture and ways of life as well. The horses and the horse rider are decorated in beautiful manner as our culture allowed. Tourists are retreat from the capital as weekend” said Diriba about the benefits of the service.
Kaba Fikadu is another member of Wanchi Lake Ecotourism Association. The association is providing different services for the tourist and the community of the surrounding areas. Among the services given by the association are horse riding, coffee ceremony, boat and tour guide.
“At your work you meet different people from
different countries and share
experience. I observe that most of
the foreign tourists want to know more about Ethiopian culture. I think it is
the easiest way to promote our culture for the rest of the world. Since I join
this work, I benefited more from the service. We rent a horse for Birr 200”.
Beyond creating jobs for the youth the local community also benefit from ecotourism by protecting the environment form damage. Even if Oromia has various protected areas in different parts, the areas have been challenged largely by human made constraints.
Ecotourism is becoming more attractive because it is believed that it makes it possible to improve income generation without harming the environment, he indicated.
Diriba said that there is weakness in advertising and promoting its potential attractions which keeps the number of both domestic and foreign tourists minimal. Developing ecotourism can engage a wide cross section of people and it is the most promising strategy to change the livelihood of the community and diversify local livelihood options.
Diriba explained that however, the ecotourism potential is facing challenges from lack of adequate infrastructure, inadequate involvement of local community due to lack of awareness and lack of trained manpower. Thus, it is a crucial time for developing ecotourism to protect the beauty and environmental quality of the area and to improve local livelihood.
Oromia Regional State is blessed with an abundance of cultural and natural assets of high tourism value. It is a land of astonishing natural beauty offering all sorts of scenery ranging from lowland to highlands. Ecotourism is the alternative means of income generations and helps to minimize degradation pressure on endangered environment in rural areas.
Tourism Development and Promotion Director at Oromia Culture and Tourism Bureau Fantahun Tadese told The Ethiopian Herald that the region is well-known by magnificent landscapes capable of capturing the attention of mankind. Lots of lakes and rivers were found in the region. These lakes and their respective sites can be cited as major tourist destinations of the region. These lakes are serving as ideal places for domestic tourism as weekend retreat from the capital as well as for foreign tourist, he said.
Fantahun noted that, in addition to this developing eco-tourism can be taken as a possible way of creating jobs for the communities of the surrounding areas. The youth are working together in an organization by engaging in ecotourism in selected tourist sites Ziway, Abijata Shalla, Wonji Bale and the like.
The bureau created around 60,000 jobs this year alone in ecotourism. Moreover ecotourism helps to minimize tourism’s negative impacts and potential to be an instrument for rural economic development and environmental conservation as well, he says.
Eco-tourism plays irreplaceable role in poverty reduction and natural resource management. Despite its significant role in economy the sector faced lots of challenges. Among the problems faced to expand ecotourism were lack of sufficient infrastructural facility, community’s awareness and promotion of the potentials of the region Fantahun explained.
West Shewa Culture and Tourism Director Abebe Adeba told The Ethiopian Herald that the potential of the country are almost untouched and the country has many lakes which have varied features of great interest to tourists, churches and monasteries geological cave, local arts and artifacts of the country are among the major ecotourism attraction resource. Compared to the potential the region much effort is required to utilize the potentials of the region.
He indicated that, recently the country has faced rapid deforestation and land degradation that is a cumulative outcome of extensive forest clearing for agricultural use, overgrazing, exploitation of forests for fuel wood, construction materials, and expansion of settlement.
Abebe said ecotourism development is nowadays, increasingly used for its multipurpose. By promoting ecotourism through the protection of the environment, biodiversity is preserved, jobs are created, potential of the area is promoted, and understanding of local peoples and cultures are fostered among the tourists who visit these areas.
The Ethiopian Herald August 17, 2019
BY HAILE DEMEKE
