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|  | | Area Enclosure - A Case Study (Ethiopia) | | Seeing is believing – and 18 months after a group of local herdsmen and landowners first met with Self Help advisers in the Samaro area of Ethiopia’s Sodo District, they are witnessing the benefits of careful conservation.
After years of steady deterioration, the lands which had sustained their families for generations had had enough.
There were too many animals – cattle, goats, sheep and donkeys grazing the lower slopes of the Great Rift Valley which was their home – and steadily the vegetation – both trees and other plant life, had disappeared.
As a consequence much of the land which had previously provided pasture had become a rocky moonscape – the fragile soil upon which all grass had been grazed away became a parched dry dustbowl in high winds, and a brown and muddy torrent during heavy seasonal rains.
Less than a decade after the farmers of Samoro had first begun to witness the extreme and dramatic change – there was little left but rocky outcrop.
Some sheltered parts of the slopes still retained soil – sometimes jutting two and even three metres above the rest of the rock strewn landscape. This in itself was a chilling indicator of the pace of change, and the extent to which unprotected soils could be stripped by the elements from the hillsides.
In other areas nearby the rains have carved great gulleys and ravines out of the landscape, as the water literally cut through the land, as it found its quickest route down the mountain to the valley floor.
A short distance from the Samora ‘moonscape’ the local community, in conjunction with Self Help’s advisers, agreed two years ago to establish a local area enclosure, in a bid to regenerate an area had been a victim of this environmental transformation. |
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| Local community representatives established a monitoring committee, and approved a plan and series of local by-laws which had the effect of preventing future grazing in the enclosure area by farm animals.
Self Help provided training, instruction and the necessary seedlings, and over a period of months the local community set about a process of replanting the enclosed area with native plants and shrubs, together with a range of nitrogen fixing introduced variety species designed to aid the regeneration of the area.
Various species of grasses, including vetiver, whose roots run to as much as five metres, were planted throughout the site, and along with introduced sand bags and small stone wall structures had the effect of slowing rainfall run off – and ensuring that much of the water now soaked down, rather than merely ran off the surface of the bare earth.
Recognising the pressing needs which farmers and other land users had to provide fodder on a daily basis for their livestock, a number of different fast growing varieties of shrubs including the Saspania Saspan were also planted – and within little more than a year were ready for pruning – with the outer branches being ‘cut and carried’ by the farmers inside the enclosed area, and brought to their livestock outside.
Eighteen months later and the real signs of regeneration are clear to see at Samora. A local conservation committee of land users has begun a rota of limited grazing of the enclosure area, while the site is also being used to propagate seedlings and grasses which in time can be transplanted to other degraded areas, and new enclosures.
Self Help Development International recognise that the problems of soil degradation and desertification being faced by rural communities in Africa will not be remedied by conservation and replanting measures alone - but it is rather through an integrated programme of activities that real and lasting change can be brought about.
The population explosion which has occurred throughout Africa has placed huge pressures on the natural resources – particularly when you consider that in countries such as Ethiopia as many as 90 per cent of the population rely on the land for their survival. But it is also tradition – and specifically the tradition which encourages livestock ownership, and attaches status to those who own cattle, which must be addressed.
As a development agency which works exclusively with trained indigenous staff from the countries where we operate, Self Help seeks to work in close partnership with rural communities on these and other issues, and encourage and promote alternative solutions to the problems they are facing.
By promoting, encouraging and supporting the development of land irrigation by means as simple and sustainable as the harvesting and storage of available rainfall, by introducing improved quality seed stock, better farming methods, promoting crop diversification, poultry production, bee-keeping and other small income generating activities, rural communities have achieved levels of security which were not previously possible.
We believe that this ultimately can and will encourage rural communities themselves to look at these issues - and recognise that there can and are alternative forms of security to livestock - one of the traditional ‘insurance policies’ for communities who have lived with poverty and food insecurity for generations. | | Related Topics | | | | | |
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| | | | | Self Help Africa is a limited liability company. Company number: 105601 Charity No. 6663 (Ireland)
The organisation has offices in Ireland at: Annefield House, Dublin Road, Portlaoise, Co. Laois Tel: 00 353 (0)57 8694034 - Fax: 00 353 (0)57 8694038, and in the United Kingdom at : Second Floor Suite, Westgate House, Dickens Court, Off Hills Lane, Shrewsbury, Shropshire SY1 1QU. Tel : 0044-(0)1743 277170
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