location: Ethiopia

location: Ethiopia

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As climate change upends Ethiopia’s pastoral wisdom, adaptations can help
- In the face of climate change, pastoral and agropastoral communities in eastern Ethiopia remain at the receiving end of worsening droughts and climate shocks that have taken a toll on animal rearing and traditional livelihoods.
- For generations, pastoralists and agropastoralists across the country have used traditional knowledge and weather forecasting for preparedness and drought conditions.
- But these techniques are no longer as effective in the face of frequent unpredictable dry spells and population pressures on pasture.
- Researchers suggest combining this traditional knowledge with innovative strategies to help pastoralists gather real-time data on water conditions that can be key to drought adaptation in the region.

Drought & climate change force Ethiopia pastoralists to go job hunting
- A severe drought, worsened by climate change, is driving pastoralists in Ethiopia’s Somali region to abandon traditional herding lifestyles in favor of urban labor, leading to significant shifts in their livelihoods.
- Many pastoralists are forced to seek alternative livelihoods in farming, construction and trade, which require new skills and adaptation to urban life.
- Former pastoralists express emotional ties to their traditional way of life and struggle with the demands of new jobs, reflecting the broader impacts of climate change on their identities and futures.
- A land and agriculture expert says nature-based solutions provide an opportunity to help pastoralists adapt to droughts, while government programs are focused on technical support and helping pastoralists achieve alternative livelihoods.

Holistic care for an Ethiopian lake system: Interview with Redwan Mohammed
- Redwan Mohammed leads a project to restore Ethiopia’s Ziway-Shalla river basin, which is under pressure due to deforestation and erosion.
- Abijata-Shalla Lakes National Park lies at the basin’s heart, centered on a pair of saline lakes that provide vital habitat to migratory waterbirds.
- The river basin is also home to around 60,000 farmers and herders as well as commercial flower farms and other light industry.
- Mohammed’s employer, Wetlands International, focuses on protecting wetlands because they provide essential ecosystem services such as water filtration, flood control, and habitat for wildlife.

Small steps towards larger goal of protecting East African wetlands
- Conservation NGO Wetlands International had lofty ambitions when it rolled out its Source to Sea project in East Africa in 2021, covering the Rift Valley wetlands and the Indian Ocean mangroves.
- Difficulties that arose included underestimating the time needed to get government agencies, civil society and community groups on board, overambitious planning, and communication barriers with locals.
- They quickly realized that residents’ urgent livelihood needs needed to be acknowledged and addressed before more abstract concepts such as wetland conservation and integrated catchment management could be introduced.
- Today, the project has made essential contributions to the lives of participating communities and the catchment’s health, created awareness of mangroves and wetlands among the different groups involved, and helped influence policies on water resource management.

African markets tackle food insecurity and climate change — but lack investment
- Global food insecurity has risen substantially across the world due to extreme weather events, climate change and conflict.
- A new report by IPES-Food shows how territorial markets, which are embedded in the culture of African communities, can increase food security and boost climate resilience.
- According to researchers, territorial markets are more accessible and affordable to low-income populations and are more flexible than supermarkets in providing a diversity of indigenous climate-resilient foods.
- Yet a lack of infrastructure, investment and government support present barriers to territorial markets and their ability to deliver the benefits they can bring.

Protected areas benefit nature & people, study says — with caveats
- A new paper in the journal Current Biology that attempts to track how protected areas (PAs) fare on biodiversity protection and economic growth found that PAs “don’t have a negative impact on local economic growth.”
- However, experts say that the encouraging results must be interpreted with abundant caution because the study uses narrow definitions of conservation success and economic development.
- The top 10 countries that were most likely to report harmony between the two objectives included five African countries: Ethiopia, Burkina Faso, Madagascar, Zambia and South Sudan.
- The performance of PAs in key biodiversity areas such as the Amazon and Southeast Asia was also lackluster, but this was in comparison with other areas, said Binbin Li, first author of the study. “It is not at the same level [as other regions], but it is not rare.”

Guardians of the sacred: Ethiopian Orthodox monks on spiritual forest conservation
- Church forests, patches of forested land surrounding churches as protected areas, started out as a tradition in the early days of Christianity in Ethiopia and still endure today.
- Many of these forests protect some of the country’s last standing forests, brimming in biodiversity and a tranquil sense of harmony on Earth.
- Monks and nuns at one of the country’s oldest and most revered monasteries say they believe the forests, like all creation, are a sacred gift from God and play a vital role in maintaining the spiritual and physical well-being of people.
- In this exclusive interview, Mongabay speaks with two monks living in these ancient monasteries about their connection to the forest, how they conserve them, and the role Orthodox Christianity plays in their relationship to all life.

World Heritage Site listing for Ethiopian park leads to eviction of farming community
- The new designation of a UNESCO World Heritage Site in Ethiopia will also come with the relocation of the more than 20,000 people living inside Bale Mountains National Park, say park officials.
- Home to a wealth of biodiversity, the park has experienced a dramatic increase in illegal human settlements, which park officials and conservationists say threatens its natural resources, forest cover, and habitat for rare and endemic species.
- Community members have mixed feelings about the planned relocation, with longtime residents mostly opposing it due to attachment to the land and fear over their livelihoods, and others open to receiving fair compensation in exchange.
- The relocation strategy is still in its initial stages and hasn’t officially been shared with communities, though UNESCO and Ethiopian officials underline the importance of consulting the locals and supporting their livelihoods.

Balancing elephant conservation and community needs: Q&A with award-winning ranger Fetiya Ousman
- The harsh environment of Ethiopia’s Babile Elephant Sanctuary is characterized by intense competition for resources, particularly water and land, between elephants and people.
- Expanding human settlements and poaching are fragmenting areas where endangered elephants range, while elephants at times destroy community crops in search of food or space.
- This daily struggle for survival is exacerbating conflicts between humans and elephants, with nine community members and six elephants killed in violent encounters this year alone.
- To dive into the human-elephant conflicts boiling over in this sanctuary and know how rangers maneuver this tricky reality, Mongabay speaks with the sanctuary’s award-winning chief ranger, Fetiya Ousman.

Tested by COVID and war, an Indigenous conservation system in Ethiopia prevails
- For more than 400 years, communities in the Guassa grasslands of Ethiopia’s central highlands have practiced a sustainable system for managing the area’s natural resources.
- The system’s robustness was severely tested from 2020 with the one-two punch of COVID-19 and the Tigray war, but held strong.
- Threats to the grassland persist, however, from a growing population and road projects, which the community hopes to address through ecotourism initiatives as an alternative source of income.
- The Guassa Community Conservation Area is home to rare plant and wildlife species such as gelada baboons, Ethiopian wolves, and the versatile guassa grass that’s a central part of community life.

Ethiopia’s largest community conservation area brings Indigenous communities into the fold
- Indigenous communities in the Lower Omo River Valley of southwestern Ethiopia have taken ownership and management responsibilities of the Tama Wildlife Reserve through the creation of the Tama Community Conservation Area (TCCA).
- The TCCA, spanning 197,000 hectares (486,000 acres), is Ethiopia’s largest community conservation area.
- The area is home to diverse wildlife, including the endemic black-winged lovebird, and is inhabited by the Mursi, Bodi, Northern Kwegu and Ari communities.
- The TCCA will be managed by a community council; however, guidelines on farming activities, natural resource use and preventing human-wildlife conflict have not yet been established.

Dams and plantations upend livelihoods in Ethiopia’s Lower Omo River Valley
- Food insecurity, famine and malnutrition have blighted the agropastoralist communities of the Lower Omo River Valley in southwestern Ethiopia.
- A government source blames a long-term drought for the recent suffering and, in some cases, the deaths of people in this part of the country.
- But researchers and human rights advocates say the drought has only exacerbated fundamental changes to the cultures of these peoples brought on by the construction of a dam and the establishment of sugarcane plantations in the region.
- They say such “economic development” projects have dispossessed the Lower Omo’s peoples of their farming and grazing lands and irreversibly altered the natural cycles of the Omo River that was once the mainstay of their livelihoods.

Ethiopia used chemicals to kill locusts. Billions of honeybees disappeared
- Kenya and Ethiopia sprayed millions of hectares of cropland and pastures with chemical pesticides in response to massive locust swarms that emerged between 2019 and 2021.
- In Ethiopia, around 76 billion honeybees died or abandoned their hives during this period, a new study estimates, arguing that chemical spraying was most likely to blame.
- The researchers said Somalia’s use of a biopesticide, on the other hand, was a better approach and that chemical pesticides banned in the EU and the U.S. because of harmful effects on the environment and human health cannot continue to be used in other parts of the world.
- Advocates for integrated pest management say that countries should track and manage locust upsurges before they reach threatening proportions.

Kew Gardens joins local partners to save tropical plants from extinction
- The U.K.’s Kew Gardens does far more than preserve and display 50,000 living and 7 million preserved specimens of the world’s plants; it also educates the public about the importance of plant conservation via its famous London facility.
- In 2022, Kew Gardens identified 90 plants and 24 fungi completely new to science. They include the world’s largest giant water lily, with leaves more than 3 meters across, from Bolivia; and a 15-meter tree from Central America, named after the murdered Honduran environmental activist Berta Cáceres.
- The institution is working actively with local partners in many parts of the world, and especially in the tropics, to save these species in-situ, that is, where they were found. When Kew can’t do this, it saves seeds in its herbarium, carrying out ex-situ conservation.
- Kew researchers, along with scientists from tropical nations, are also working together to ensure that local communities benefit from this conservation work. The intention is to save these threatened plants for the long term, helping slow the pace of Earth’s current extinction crisis — the only one caused by humans.

‘Development’ projects in Ethiopia leave starvation, disease in wake: Report
- Indigenous groups in southwestern Ethiopia are suffering from starvation and disease after being displaced from their land for construction of a dam and the installation of large-scale sugarcane plantations, according to a report from the Oakland Institute, a California-based think tank.
- These projects have deprived the communities living in the Lower Omo Valley of their ability to farm and maintain their livestock herds, but this “catastrophe” has gone largely unnoticed in the shadow of even wider hunger and displacement due to civil war in the northern Tigray region, the report says.
- Humanitarian NGO World Vision International delivered some food aid to the region in November 2022.
- But the Oakland Institute said more food and medical care is urgently needed, along with the return of the land back to the Indigenous groups who have lived in this region for centuries, and is urging the government and the humanitarian community to respond immediately.

Forests & Finance: A road project, food baskets, and unique wildlife
- An environmental impact study warns that a planned highway between the Senegal cities of Dakar and Saint Louis would lead to nearly 400,000 trees being cut down in two forest reserves along the route.
- In Zambia, a study shows that households are heavily reliant on forest foods, which leaves them vulnerable to food insecurity as forest loss increases in the country.
- Researchers hoping to create a new protected area for southwest Ethiopia’s Gura Ferda forest, have highlighted a rich and unique biodiversity following an expedition to the area.
- Forests & Finance is Mongabay’s bi-weekly bulletin of briefs about Africa’s forests.

Ethiopia’s honey forest: People and wildlife living in sweet harmony
- Earlier this year, the Gura Ferda forest in southwest Ethiopia was surveyed to assess its conservation potential.
- By some estimates, wet forests contain up to 80% of terrestrial biodiversity and Gura Ferda hosts numerous endemic plant and animal species.
- Despite its unique characteristics, biodiversity and importance for local wildlife, the forest is not formally protected.
- Ecologist and expedition leader Julian Bayliss says making the forest a community conservation area would allow local communities to continue to play a leading role in protecting the forest.

Debunking the colonial myth of the ‘African Eden’: Q&A with author Guillaume Blanc
- In debunking persistent myths like that of an “African Eden,” Guillaume Blanc, author of “The Invention of Green Colonialism,” lays bare contradictions in the European project to secure and simultaneously exploit Africa’s land during direct colonial rule and after.
- “The more the destruction was happening in Northern [Hemisphere] countries, the more we wanted to save it in Africa,” he told Mongabay in an interview, describing how the campaign to preserve pristine wilderness in Africa has led to the casting of its inhabitants as destructive invaders.
- Blanc argues that the organizations that evolved out of colonial arrangements for colonial aims must acknowledge and apologize for the harm inflicted, dig deeper when seeking change, and cast a wider net for more meaningful solutions that treat citizens of African countries as collaborators not encroachers on their own lands.
- Organizations with a global presence must work with residents of places where they operate and focus on localized research and solutions to remain relevant, Blanc said.

Coal mining threatens Ethiopia’s ancient coffee forest
- The Yayu forest in southwestern Ethiopia is a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve and one of the world’s only remaining ecosystems in which genetically diverse varietals of arabica coffee grow wild.
- The forest also sits atop a massive deposit of coal, estimated to be enough to meet Ethiopia’s domestic coal demand for 40 years.
- With Ethiopia’s government looking to boost the country’s mining industry, a shuttered mining venture in the forest’s buffer zone is set to be revived.
- Coffee farmers who have carefully managed and protected the forest for generations say a shift to mining will completely change their society, the local economy, and the environment.

‘Water grab’: Big farm deals leave small farmers out to dry, study shows
- Large agricultural investment projects are often promoted as a way to increase food production and food security, but a recent analysis indicates that such projects often threaten water resources that local farmers and Indigenous populations depend on.
- While such investments can increase crop yields through the expansion of irrigation, the majority of the 160 projects studied were found to be likely to intensify water shortages through both the adoption of water-intensive crops and the expansion of irrigated cultivation.
- In effect, the researchers say, such deals can amount to “water grabs,” creating a crisis for local farmers who now find themselves competing with big investors for limited water resources.

As the Horn of Africa heats up, the risks of insecurity are rising (commentary)
- World leaders are increasingly concerned about the complex connections between climate and insecurity, including the risk that climate disruption is a “conflict multiplier.”
- The threat is particularly acute in the Greater Horn of Africa, where populations already grappling with food insecurity and armed conflict are experiencing some of the fastest-warming conditions in the world.
- Noting that “the fortunes and stability of this region of 365 million people now look to be at the mercy of weather-driven mayhem”, Robert Muggah, Peter Schmidt, and Giovanna Kuele of the Igarapé Institute draw attention to various efforts already underway in the region to build resilience and call for stepped-up support from global powers.
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the authors, not necessarily of Mongabay.

As Ethiopia’s war rages, a 400-year-old conservation site is scarred by battle
- A major fire has burned more than 1,000 hectares (nearly 2,500 acres) of grassland in the Guassa Community Conservation Area in Ethiopia’s central highlands.
- The area is among the oldest examples of community-managed conservation in Africa, centered on preserving the Festuca grass that is used for thatching roofs.
- The grasslands are also home to endangered Ethiopian wolves and gelada baboons, and more recently have become a favored ecotourism site.
- It’s still unclear what triggered the blaze, but the area was the site of a battle in Ethiopia’s ongoing civil war in late November.

Supporting more holistic approaches to conservation: an interview with Kai Carter
- For at least the past 20 years, there has been regular talk about the need to break down silos in conservation. But in practice, the conservation sector as a whole has been slow to bring the necessary voices and expertise into the conversation. That hesitancy, or inertia, can mean missed opportunities to connect conservation with other positive outcomes, from health to livelihoods.
- Kai Carter understands this well: As a program officer at the Packard Foundation’s Agriculture, Livelihoods, and Conservation (ALC) strategy, her work focuses on supporting organizations that work at the intersection of local communities, rights, health, and the environment.
- “Local agriculture, economic development, and conservation are interwoven in people’s lives; they don’t view them as separate,” Carter told Mongabay. “We’ve been exploring how our grantmaking can be more effective by approaching environmental sustainability, livelihoods, community resilience, and health holistically and with the intention of centering the needs and aspirations of smallholder farming communities.”
- Carter spoke about the Packard Foundation’s ALC strategy, equity and inclusion in conservation, and a range of other issues during a recent conversation with Mongabay founder Rhett A. Butler.

Farmers regreen Kenya’s drylands with agroforestry and an app
- In Kenya, less than 20% of farmland is suitable for crops due to inadequate rains and degraded soils, and many farmers have seen their land produce less to the point of needing food aid.
- Dried-out soils create a hard pan that rains and roots can’t penetrate, but in Kenya, more than 35,000 farmers have joined the Drylands Development Programme to regreen their lands with agroforestry, joining peers in Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, Mali and Niger.
- By planting annual crops among useful trees like mango, orange and neem, vegetables and animal forage crops receive enough cooling shade and moisture for them to take hold out of the scorching sun.
- As each farmer learns what combination of crops and trees works for them, the results are rapidly shared with researchers and fellow farmers through an app, speeding the rate at which all the program participants can benefit from the knowledge.

Spiny new chameleon species described from Bale Mountains of Ethiopia
- Researchers have described a new chameleon species from the Bale Mountains of south-central Ethiopia and say it’s likely that more will emerge.
- Wolfgang Böhme’s Ethiopian chameleon is around 15 centimeters (6 inches) long and has a distinct crest of large spiny scales along its back and tail.
- It lives in bushes and small trees, often at the edges of the forest in the Bale Mountains, a biodiversity hotspot that’s also home to the endemic Ethiopian wolf as well as lions, leopards and warthogs.
- The conservation status of the new chameleon is unknown, but due to its small distribution range and human-caused habitat disturbance and agriculture in the area, it is likely that it will be classified as threatened.

Coffee sustainability check: Q&A with Sjoerd Panhuysen of Coffee Barometer report
- Coffee enjoys a reputation as a sustainable crop, but for many of the people who cultivate it, it’s a “poverty crop” that’s economically unviable, says Sjoerd Panhuysen, lead author of the annual Coffee Barometer report for Ethos Agriculture.
- Panhuysen says that while the coffee industry as a whole is booming, most of the profits are concentrated at the retail end of the chain, with exporters making less than a tenth of the revenue.
- Another inequity is that while women perform much of the production activities, men tend to benefit more from training in sustainable production practices, income and other benefits derived from coffee sales, he says.
- In this Q&A with Mongabay, Panhuysen identifies the growth regions for sustainable coffee, the need for clear indicators of sustainability progress, and the importance of developing solutions from the bottom up.

Land scarcity and disease threaten a multifaceted indigenous crop in Ethiopia
- Although varieties of the plant are found in many sub-Saharan countries, only in Ethiopia has it been domesticated.
- Land scarcity means farmers are turning to growing more lucrative cash crops, such as the stimulant khat or maize, with the number of enset farms declining in recent decades.
- The plant is also threatened by blight, leading researchers to develop a genetically modified variety that’s now being tested — amid controversy — for disease resistance.

$85 million initiative to scale up agroforestry in Africa announced
- A coalition of NGOs recently announced “the biggest land restoration project ever seen,” starting with an $85 million project to scale up agroforestry in Tanzania, Uganda, Malawi, Zambia, Kenya and Ethiopia.
- Agroforestry is the practice of growing trees, shrubs, herbs, and vegetables together in a group mimicking a forest, and is credited as a way to sequester climate-warming carbon while feeding people and providing habitat for biodiversity.
- “This may be the largest individual investment ever made in agroforestry,” one expert told Mongabay of the project.
- The Global EverGreening Alliance has a goal of capturing 20 billion tons of CO2 annually by 2050, and this first project is said to cover an area about the size of the U.S. state of New Jersey.

Dam in Ethiopia has wiped out indigenous livelihoods, report finds
- A dam in southern Ethiopia built to supply electricity to cities and control the flow of water for irrigating industrial agriculture has led to the displacement and loss of livelihoods of indigenous groups, the Oakland Institute has found.
- On June 10, the policy think tank published a report of its research, demonstrating that the effects of the Gibe III dam on the Lower Omo River continue to ripple through communities, forcing them onto sedentary farms and leading to hunger, conflict and human rights abuses.
- The Oakland Institute applauds the stated desire of the new government, which came to power in April 2018, to look out for indigenous rights.
- But the report’s authors caution that continued development aimed at increasing economic productivity and attracting international investors could further marginalize indigenous communities in Ethiopia.

In Ethiopia’s Addis Ababa, Gullele Botanical Garden captivates city dwellers
- Gullele Botanic Garden (GBG) is the first of its kind located in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
- Officially inaugurated and opened to the public in January 2019, it has become increasingly popular among the city’s residents and educators.
- On a smaller scale, similar initiatives such as Shashemene Botanical Garden are being undertaken elsewhere in the country.

In Ethiopia, a community leans on customs to save an antelope from extinction
- By 1992, the animal had been hunted almost to extinction in the Senkele Swayne’s Hartebeest Sanctuary, one of the last places where it’s found.
- Traditional leaders banded together to convince their community to end the hunting of the hartebeest for food, on the grounds that it went against their age-old customs.
- The Swayne’s hartebeest population has since rebounded, although threats to its survival remain, both from natural predation and from human activities.

In Ethiopia, women and faith drive effort to restore biodiversity
- In Addis Ababa, approximately 35 percent of the household fuelwood – mainly eucalyptus – is systematically gathered from the Entoto Mountains just outside the city.
- Ethiopia historically planted large areas with fast-growing eucalyptus, a non-native species, to meet the demand for fuelwood. But the trees’ water-hogging nature has had a destructive impact on the land.
- There are efforts to reforest areas with native species, supported by the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, which has a tradition of maintaining tree gardens throughout the country.

Pressure mounting for the home of wild coffee and Ethiopian wolves
- The region of Bale Park is vital to the survival of endemic flora and fauna, like the mountain nyala (Tragelaphus buxtoni), a large antelope, and some of the planet’s last wild coffee
- Bale is also home to other ancient forms of livelihood, such as traditional beekeeping.
- Now there’s a mounting battle to preserve the park, a crucial part of southern Ethiopia’s ecosystem and a watershed source for 12 million people.

Ethiopia: Khat farming threatens food security, biodiversity, women, and agroforestry
- Southern Ethiopia has long been a stronghold of an ecologically sound version of agriculture, agroforestry, which yields food and medicine crops year round while benefiting a diversity of wild species.
- In recent decades farmers have moved toward growing only khat, a drug banned in most countries but still legal in Ethiopia and neighboring countries, on their small farms.
- The transition has led to greater farmer incomes but also declines in food security, biodiversity, soil health, and women’s empowerment.
- Researchers and activists are advocating for returning such farms at least to modified agroforestry systems of khat intercropped with food crops in the event of a massive crop failure or outright ban of the drug.

Agroforestry ‘home gardens’ build community resilience in southern Ethiopia
- The village of Bule is believed to be the birthplace of traditional “home garden” agroforestry in Ethiopia.
- Farmers here practice this ancient multi-storied agroforestry system — the growing of trees, shrubs and annual crops together in a forest-mimicking system — around their homesteads, hence the name home garden.
- Trees provide fruit, timber, fodder or soil-building properties and shade for mid-story crops like coffee and enset, with vegetable and medicinal herbs growing on the forest floor.
- Farm families are more food secure, because the system provides economic, ecological and environmental attributes and provide year-round and marketable harvests.

Land restoration makes progress in Ethiopia
- In Meket – a district in Ethiopia’s Amhara National Regional State (ANRS) – efforts are underway to restore what experts say is one of the more severely deforested and degraded regions in the country.
- Of the land in ANRS, less than 2 percent forested land remains, and efforts are underway to restore degraded and deforested areas.
- In 2016, Ethiopia turned to forestry sector development projects in the form of short rotation planting and rehabilitation of degraded lands in ANRS and other districts.

Why keep Africa’s dryland forests alive?
- Small holder farmers from 6,000 Malian households have restored 320 hectares of land through a combination of on-farm natural tree regeneration, water harvesting, moisture retention technologies, improved soil filtration, and enhanced soil humus.
- This is just one of many efforts currently underway to restore Africa’s dryland forests. There are many obstacles left to overcome, but as the Mali example clearly shows, there are successes to celebrate and build upon, as well.
- In sub-Saharan Africa, 80 percent of charcoal and firewood used by about 2.4 million people is harvested in woodlands found in the dryland areas. Experts say it’s time to start packaging these fragile yet rich and highly adaptive ecosystems into investment opportunities.

150 years after being discovered, African monkey with handlebar moustache becomes its own species

An African monkey first described to science more than 150 years ago has now been elevated to full species status. The Blue Nile patas monkey is found in the Blue Nile basin of Ethiopia as well as in eastern Sudan. Its range is geographically distinct from that of other patas monkeys, as Sudan’s Sudd swamp […]
Can agroforestry propel climate commitments? Interview with Peter Minang
- In the Paris agreement, most developing countries identified agroforestry as a key part of their climate strategy.
- Nationally Determined Contributions, or NDCs, are the main tool for defining countries’ contributions to the Agreement.
- The World Agroforestry Centre (ICRAF), just released a policy brief on agroforestry’s central role in governmental efforts to achieve their NDCs.
- Author Peter A. Minang explains how agroforestry’s contribution to climate goals could be enhanced.

Community pulls water-thirsty invasive weeds from Ethiopia’s Lake Tana
- Lake Tana is Ethiopia’s largest lake, and feeds the Blue Nile.
- At several points where tributaries flow into the lake, invasive water hyacinth is soaking up water and choking the shoreline.
- A 2012 study found that there were 20,000 hectares of water hyacinth on Lake Tana. In five years, that number doubled.

Ethiopia’s first botanic garden aims to preserve country’s flora heritage
- Though frequently visited by dignitaries and international visitors, Gullele is still relatively unknown to local residents.
- The garden is home to 780 plant species endemic to Ethiopia.
- Gullele’s management hopes to collaborate with institutions of higher education to plant and research vegetation in their natural environments.

Despite population growth and management challenges, hope for forests in Ethiopia
- The country’s capital city of Addis Ababa, already home to about 3.4 million people, is expanding outward and impacting forestland in its periphery.
- A legacy of poor forest management has long plagued Ethiopia’s efforts to protect and manage indigenous tree species and the habitat in which they grow.
- Poverty is driving the exploitation of woodland resources such as eucalyptus, as the need for charcoal and firewood increases along with population growth.

Ethiopia looks to carbon trading as it gears up to be net carbon neutral by 2025
- The massive Oromia region constitutes over 34 percent of Ethiopia’s landmass and is home to more than 33 million people.
- The Oromia program will receive $68 million in various benefits through two World Bank program for the next decade.
- Ethiopia will use the program to build on existing landscape protection and project approaches to REDD+ as they scale up and finance improved land use across Oromia.

Trophy hunters overstate contribution of big game hunting to African economies: Report
- Humane Society International (HSI) timed the release of the report to coincide with the start of Safari Club International’s (SCI) annual convention in Las Vegas, Nevada on February 1.
- US-based SCI, one of the world’s largest trophy hunting advocacy organizations, released a report in 2015 that claimed trophy hunting-related tourism contributes $426 million annually to the economies of eight African countries and creates more than 53,400 full- and part-time jobs.
- But the HSI report, prepared by Melbourne, Australia-based consultancy Economists At Large, found that SCI had “grossly overstated the contribution of big game hunting to eight African economies and that overall tourism in Africa dwarfs trophy hunting as a source of revenue,” according to a statement.

Development of Ethiopia’s Yayu biosphere a lifeline for organic coffee
- The UNESCO-recognized Yayu Coffee Forest Biosphere Reserve covers 50,000 hectares of land in its core and buffer zones and is the traditional home to organic, wild coffee.
- The Yayu reserve is directly and indirectly related to the livelihoods of over 150,000 people.
- Organic Ethiopian forest coffee has yet to make its debut on the Ethiopian Commodity Exchange.

The people of Ethiopia’s forests
- Ethiopia’s forestry sector contributed $893.7 million to the economy in 2011, or about 3.2 percent of the GDP.
- After decades of significant loss, the country’s forests have slowly begun to limp back, in large part due to planting efforts.
- From conservation work to sawmill houses and beyond, the forest-dependent populations of Ethiopia are impacting the future of the country’s forests.

This is why your coffee beans matter to the planet
- Coffee is one of the world’s most traded commodities and last year, 148 million 132-pound bags of coffee were produced globally.
- Southwest Ethiopia is home to the important Coffea Arabica, the genetic root of Arabica coffee.
- Commercial coffee is descended from a small number of plants which have been bred for a number of specific characteristics such as high yields.

Ethiopia’s vulnerable tropical forests are key to securing future of wild coffee
- Wild Ethiopian coffee is worth three times as much as non-wild coffee on the commercial market.
- Southwest Ethiopia’s vulnerable forests are the center of of wild coffee’s genetic diversity.
- Wild Ethiopian coffee represents an insurance plan of sorts for the commercial coffee market.

Snake photographed in Ethiopia may be new species of venomous viper
- Graduate student Evan Buechley, and his colleagues, spotted the new species first in 2013 inside Ethiopia’s Bale Mountains National Park.
- Based on Buechley’s photographs, a team of scientists re-examined a museum specimen of a similar-looking snake at London’s Natural History Museum, and confirmed that the snake is a new species of Bitis viper.
- The team has named the new species Bitis harenna after the Harenna forest in Bale Mountains National Park where Buechley photographed it.

Previously undiscovered lion population found in Ethiopia
- Wildlife conservationists have confirmed, for the first time, the presence of a previously undiscovered population of African lions in Alatash National Park located in a remote part of northwest Ethiopia.
- Based on lions captured on cameras and observed lion tracks, the team from Oxford University’s Wildlife Conservation Research Unit estimates that 100-200 lions could be present throughout Alatash, and neighboring Dinder National Park in Sudan.
- The discovery of lions on Ethiopia-Sudan border raises hope for the “vulnerable” African lions, which have otherwise been wiped out from much of Ethiopia, conservationists say.

Norway extends forest conservation initiative
- At the Paris climate convention on Friday, Norwegian Minister of Environment and Climate Tine Sundtoft said the country would extend its International Climate and Forest Initiative through 2030.
- Norway has already put 17 billion krone ($2.5 billion) into supporting forest conservation initiatives.
- Norway said most of its spending will be targeted “towards paying for verified emissions reductions, in line with relevant UNFCCC decisions”. Norway already has performance-based agreements for reducing deforestation with Brazil, Colombia, Ethiopia, Guyana, Indonesia, Liberia, and Ethiopia.

2015 Equator Prize winners span 19 countries
- The United Nations today announced 21 winners of the 2015 Equator Prize, a prestigious award that recognizes community-led environmental initiatives.
- The winners, selected from a pool of 1,461 nominations across 126 countries, include a wide range of groups from around the world.
- The winners were announced during a ceremony hosted by actor Alec Baldwin

Consumer choice: Shade-grown coffee and cocoa good for the birds, farmers, ecosystems

A thunderhead builds over a lush agricultural mosaic in a coffee growing region of Ethiopia. Photo credit: Evan Buechley. The next time you order that “wake up” cup of Joe or reach for a sweet treat, you may want to consider whether those coffee or cocoa beans were grown in the shade or open sun. […]
Your name here: auctioning the naming rights to new species to fund conservation

A newly discovered beetle species, Cactopinus rhettbutleri, was named after mongabay.com’s founder to fund the preservation of Ethiopian forests. Meg Lowman is on a mission to save northern Ethiopia’s church forests, one at a time. Numbering around 3,500, these small “sacred” patches of forest surrounding churches are isolated natural oases in Ethiopia’s otherwise mostly agricultural […]
Researchers, locals work together to save Ethiopia’s ‘church forests’
- Presenting a workshop on ecosystem services to a roomful of priests in Ethiopia may seem like an unlikely scenario for a conservation biologist to end up in, but for Meg Lowman, it’s an essential part of spreading her passion for bottom-up conservation.
- “Canopy Meg,” as she’s fondly referred to by her colleagues, believes in the power of local communities to be part of the solution, often in ways that are more effective than researchers can make alone.

One-two punch: farming, global warming destroying unique East African forests

A recent study examines the evolution of viper species in East Africa, highlighting the region’s mountaintop forests as among the most biodiverse in the world and calling for their protection. Atheris ceratophora enjoys a snack. Photo by Michele Menegon. East Africa is famous for its dry savannahs, sparse woodlands, and its “Big Five” animals: elephants, […]
Forest restoration commitments: driven by science or politics?

Uganda, Ethiopia, and the DRC made lofty forest restoration pledges Forest during the UN Climate Summit last month. Will they follow through? The United Nations Climate Summit at the end of September saw a host of governments, agencies and organizations rally around an international agreement aimed at stopping deforestation called the New York Declaration on […]
Four countries pledge to restore 30 million hectares of degraded lands at UN Summit

In 2011, Germany and the International Union for the Conservation of Nature launched the Bonn Challenge, which pledged to restore 150 million hectares of degraded and deforested lands by 2020. Several countries have already made commitments—including the U.S.—but this week at the UN Climate Summit four more jumped on board. The Democratic Republic of the […]
Next big idea in forest conservation: Reconnecting faith and forests

Innovation in Tropical Forest Conservation: Q&A with Dr. Shonil Bhagwat Entrance to a sacred grove in Kodagu, India. Photo courtesy of Shonil Bhagwat. “In Africa, you can come across Kaya forests of coastal Kenya, customary forests in Uganda, sacred forest groves in Benin, dragon forests in The Gambia or church forests in Ethiopia…You can also […]
‘Borne by the rest of the world’: deforestation has global impact, reduces food security

Research indicates that areas with more forest cover tend to have superior food security compared to areas with less. In addition, the loss of forest cover to deforestation has long-term impacts not only locally, but also globally. These topics were discussed by international experts during the 2020 International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) Conference on […]

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