Saving Stripes

Category: Rangeland management | Date: Sep 12 2009 | By: savingstripes

A couple of responses to comments before we get down to Day 5… Yes, it was exciting to get the perspective of women in a community meeting! What surprised us was that the women were relatively content with the changes in their lot over the last 30 years or so. We expected them to feel the pinch of less milk and meat, but although they did express a wish for more forage and milk, they were also quite happy that water is more available now than it was before. Between the government and aid organizations, wells and cisterns for drinking water are now much closer to settlement areas. And when you think about walking many kilometers every day with a 20 liter jug of water on your back – all the water your family will get for that day – you really do appreciate that life has probably improved for these women. The women were also happier with a slightly more settled life because it means their kids can go to school. So, the classic tradeoffs between a more mobile life (better for the livestock and rangeland) and a more settled life (better for health, education, etc.).

Anna, you asked about elephants, and we just wanted to add that elephants are virtually extinct in Ethiopia. While we were there, we happened to see a short TV clip about a group of elephants that still lives in the far east of the country, but through most of the country’s park and rangeland, there are none left. (More on the absence of wildlife later).

Sauwah, you asked why bush encroachment is happening – an important question, and we’ll talk about that a bit more in one of the next posts, since it is a huge issue in southern Ethiopia as well as northern Kenya (and many other semi-arid rangelands around the world).