Ethiopia Trip Conclusion
Category: Rangeland management | Date: Oct 24 2009 | By: savingstripes
Sorry, dear readers, we’ve been a bit remiss in keeping up the blog lately. Getting back on track now.
We left you in the middle of Ethiopia, which was a bit unfair, we admit. So to conclude our trip…
After two fascinating days in the area around Yabello, we stopped for one more meeting (with a group called SOS Sahel that is doing some great participatory mapping work) and headed out. Our hosts at CARE had suggested that we go back to Addis via a different route. Our drive took us west of Yabello and into the land of the Konso agro-pastoralist people.
The Konso live by actively conserving their meager soil and rain water. The steep hillslopes of their land are intricately terraced with stone walls to retain soil and prevent runoff. They plant a number of grains in these terraces, mixed with a particular tree, the leaves of which (we were told) they eat like cabbage.
We continued on to the town of Arba Minch, in the Rift Valley, where we took a peak into the Nechisar National Park. Nechisar means “white grass” but to get to the grasslands you have to drive through a steep, narrow piece of terrain between two lakes: Chamo (blue water, full of huge crocodiles) and Abaya (red ferrous water).
The plains themselves were gorgeous, but sadly lacking much wildlife. Again, we were moved by the beauty of the landscape and thoughts of what it must have been like a hundred or two hundred years ago.
The rest of the return to Addis was mostly uninteresting roadways (with lots of the road under construction). In Addis we had several more meetings before we returned to Kenya.
The trip left us with a lot of impressions of a country so close and in many ways similar to Kenya, and in many ways so different. Less developed, but perhaps more relaxed than Kenya. A rich cultural landscape sadly lacking the wildlife we are lucky to have further south. A country proud never to have been truly colonized by Europeans, but with its own sad history of political upheaval.
All taken, however, we loved it, and we are excited to go back in December, when we will be running several workshops on monitoring rangeland health, giving something back, we hope, to all the people who gave so much of their time to us on this first trip.
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4 Responses to “Ethiopia Trip Conclusion”
nairobinationalpark, on 26 Oct 2009
Nice pics. The edible tree is Moringa sp…….
Ethiopia might not have been colonised but those countries that were have the best established systems of protected areas whilst EThiopia ,large as it is, is practically devoid of large mammals.Did you see the herd of plains zebra -20 or so - which are the last zebra in Borana? Pathetic really…….And there are Grevy’s on the Mieso plain adjacent to Awash Nat Park in Afarland…..or were in 1993…..
Corinna, on 26 Oct 2009
Hi, thanks for your comments. Yes, the lack of wildlife in Ethiopia was really sad. We saw a few plains zebra in Borana - perhaps the herd you are referring to. We didn’t see any Grevy’s in Afar but a local park guide told us that he has seen them on occasion in the area (a bit removed from the park - in the Alledeghi Plains). Given that a lot of the habitat in Borana is in decent condition, but that there is no wildlife, we found it hard to believe the local claims that people don’t eat bushmeat.
sauwah, on 28 Oct 2009
it’s sad and strange not have to wildlife in such wild places. they must have been killed/hunted to extinction or driven out by agri business. i do hear stories of cheetahs and other wild predators being rescued by born free now and then. these animals must have come from somewhere? the locals may not eat illegal game meat; but that does not mean they do not kill wildlife and sell the meat to city folks and others with means.
Corinna, on 28 Oct 2009
Exactly, Sauwah — It is entirely possible that game hunting is going on for a clandestine urban market. I also wonder how it would have looked to us if we had driven over from Kenya. Is there a gradually declining density of wildlife? Does the condition of the land differ when you cross the border?
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