Chapter six: challenge and opportunity of natural resource

management In Ethiopia
6.1 Opportunity of natural resource management in Ethiopia
 The major opportunities that obtained in environmental
management includes improve governance.

 The Climate Resilient Green Economy (CRGE) is probably

the major fundamental initiative Ethiopia adopted recently.

 CRGE is attached in the GTP and designed with a vision of

achieving a middle-income status by year 2025 (FDRE, 2011).

 It attempts to systematically combine attaining sustainable

economic growth, with combating adverse impacts of climate
change.
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 The major opportunities that obtained in environmental management
includes improve governance, enhance the asset of the poor,
improve the quality of growth and reform international and
industrial country policies.
 Key areas for policy action to realize those opportunities include;
integrate environment issues into national development frameworks,
strengthen decentralization for environmental management,
empower civil society, in particular poor and marginalized groups,
address gender sizes of environment issues and improve
environment monitoring and assessment.
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 The Climate Resilient Green Economy (CRGE) is probably the major

fundamental initiative Ethiopia adopted recently.

 CRGE is attached in the GTP and designed with a vision of achieving a

middle-income status by year 2025.

 It attempts to systematically combine attaining sustainable economic

growth, with combating adverse impacts of climate change.

 Accordingly, it set three complimentary objectives of; fostering economic

development and growth, ensuring abatement and avoidance of future

emissions, i.e., transition to a green economy and improving resilience to

climate change.
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 The government also set the following major targets for the forestry sector:
afforestation on 2 million ha, reforestation on 1 million ha and improved
management of 3 million ha of natural forests and woodlands.

 Through proper management of 5 million ha of forests and woodlands,

Ethiopia hopes to achieve 50% of its total domestic greenhouse gas (GHG)
emissions abatement potential by 2030.

 Economically, it has an ambitious plan to grow fast to increase the current

gross domestic product (GDP) per capita from the current around USD 380
to USD 1,000 and reduce the share of agriculture on GDP from more than
40% to less than 30%.
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 The Humbo Community Assisted Natural Regeneration
Project in the Southern Nations Nationalities Peoples Regional
State of Ethiopia is the first Clean Development Mechanism
(CDM) project initiated by World Vision-Ethiopia.

 This is the practical CDM project operating in the country

since 2006.

 The project employed afforestation/reforestation approach on a

site (2728ha) which was severely degraded due to excessive
fuel wood extraction and overgrazing.
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 The project activity provides multiple benefits including objective
enhancement of GHG removal by sinks, promotion of native
vegetation and biodiversity, reducing soil erosion and provision of
income stream for communities.
 The project achieved Gold Level Validation under the Climate
Community and Biodiversity (CCB) standards in 2011 and in
October 2012 became the first CDM project in Africa to sell
Certified Emission Reductions (CERs).
 The project life time is 30 years (since December 2006) and will
sequester an estimated 880,295 tCO2 with a total revenue of 3,961,
328.00 USD (estimated at 4.5USD/tone).
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 The assets of the poor could be augmented in environmental
management.

 Primarily this is an enormous opportunity for the rural people.

 areas for policy action includes enhance the poor’s capacity to

manage the environment, expand access to environmentally sound
and locally appropriate technology and reduce the environmental
vulnerability of the poor.

 National Biogas Program of Ethiopia, as part of the growth and

transformation plan, has contribution to the electrification and
energy generation.
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 Moreover, about 74,387MWh and net power installation of
20,717KW of energy was produced.

 This leads to keep 7277 tons agricultural residues, 5822 tons of

dung cake, 8732 tons of charcoal and 27,162 tons of fuel wood.

 Again 43,662kt of organic matter is made available as organic

fertilizers.

 40,315 peoples (women’s and children) are protected from indoor

air pollution and Biogas technology reduces the work load on the
women and children to 1348 persons per year by providing the
daily energy demand.
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 Decentralization in rural areas has given local governments to
manage for the environment.

 According to African Development Bank (AfDB) the Ethiopian

government’s existing policy and institutional framework Research
Journal of Finance and Accounting for natural resource management
and the environment is adequate and sound.

 Policies are mainstreamed in sectoral programmes which are

implemented at the federal and regional levels.
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 In Woredas preparations and implementation of
environmental management plans is on-going,
including the scaling up of the protection and
conservation practices (water, forestry) though
community participation.

 Therefore, managing environment has diverse

opportunities to be achieved.
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 As a result females get time to participate in

economic activities.

 In general the development and utilization of

biogas energy improve the quality of life, and
provide a dependable power supply to the rural
and urban areas.
 6.2 Challenge of natural resource management in Ethiopia

 Our planet’s capacity to prolong life is eroding due to the wide

disparity between consumption, production and waste
assimilation capacity of the environment.
 Ethiopia is situated in the Horn of Africa about 79% are employed
in the agricultural sector.
 Since the mass of Ethiopian population is totally dependent on
limited natural resources as their primary source of income and
strive to test nature by unlimited human growth.
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 Looking into Ethiopian history one might come across a few
stories of environmental management by the state.
 The easiest evidence indicating some form of protection of
natural resources was found in the fourth century.
 However, the first professionally organized forest management
intervention started in Ethiopia during the brief period of
Italian annexation (1936–41).
 Yet, the country faces many environmental challenges
including deforestation, soil erosion, declines in soil fertility,
loss of water quality and biodiversity.
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 Other, important environmental challenges include spread of
invasive and alien species, urban outdoor air pollution
(mainly in Addis Ababa), and toxic household wastes.
 As various figures estimated, about 1.24 million ha of natural
high forests cleared for agricultural expansion between 1990
and 2014.
 The average annual deforestation rate is 1% which is high
compared to other Sub-Saharan African countries (0.6%).
 Over the same period, annual fuel wood consumption will rise
by 65% with large effects on forest degradation.
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 Ethiopia is known for its wealth of natural resources and
biodiversity, which results from extreme altitudinal variation
and a tropical location.

 However, the mass dependence upon natural resources, 5,000

years of land cultivation and demographic expansion have
degraded the natural environment.

 As a result, Ethiopia faces many environmental challenges

including deforestation, soil erosion, declines in soil fertility
and water quality and loss of biodiversity.
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 Besides, European Commission adds major environmental
challenges together with indoor air pollution and climate change.

 Other, important environmental challenges include spread of

invasive and alien species, urban outdoor air pollution (mainly in
Addis Ababa), and toxic household wastes.

 Political, social, and economic challenges can both contribute to

and aggravated by environmental degradation.

 This leads to a cycle of poverty: to survive, people are forced to

disregard the long-term well-being of the environment and thus
degrade it further.
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 Therefore, recurrent droughts, famines, poor
infrastructure and periods of political unrest serve as
additional challenges for environmental management
within Ethiopia.
 The increment in population leads to the increased
demand for agricultural land and fuel-wood, people vastly
encroached into forest area, resulting in a high rate of
deforestation.
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 Deforestation and the resulting environmental degradation
has remained a major problem in Ethiopia and a key challenge
to:

 food security,

community livelihood and

sustainable development.
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 The removal of trees and other land cover exposes soil to the
consequences of water and wind erosion.
 This leads to the problem of land degradation, the most serious
environmental challenges in Ethiopia Ehrlich, (1988) and
worldwide.
 It is a basis for loss of vegetation cover, biodiversity and ecosystem
services.
 In 1990 approximately 17 per cent of the potential agricultural GDP
that estimated to be 59 million Birr was lost because of physical and
biological soil degradation.
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 Therefore, countries like Ethiopia, where the lives of many
rural communities are directly related to natural resources,
natural resources mean everything.

 But, all efforts, towards conservation and sustainable use of

its products are a challenging task.

 In Ethiopia, peoples heavily relay on traditional sources of

energy such as fuel wood, charcoal, animal dung, and crop
residues.
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 Traditional sources of energy accounts for about 94% of total energy
demand; while the share of modern sources (mainly Petroleum and
electricity) is just 6% of the total demand.

 These biomass fuels are burnt using smoky and inefficient

traditional stoves with very poor combustion in unventilated
kitchens producing a high concentration of dangerous pollutants.

 This leads to the death of many people especially women,

children and elderly are the most at risk.
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 The other Environmental challenges in Ethiopia are livestock.
 Livestock are estimated to contribute to the livelihoods of 60-70%
of the Ethiopia population.
 The Ethiopian livestock herd is the largest of any African nation and
help to perform a wide variety of functions and are among the most
important commodities of the country.
 However, the major production systems cause multiple
environmental impacts including erosion, soil degradation,
greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, deforestation, and water
pollution.
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 Methane is a potent greenhouse gas with a global warming potency of
more than 20 times that of carbon dioxide.

 Nitrous oxide emissions, whose primary source is manure

management, have more than 300 times the global warming potential of
carbon dioxide.

 Ruminants, including cattle, goats and sheep, emit greater amounts of

methane during their digestive process than do monogastrics
(chickens).

 Moreover, Ethiopia in terms of Livestock grazing and trampling have

marked effects on vegetative cover, soil quality and nutrient loss due to
erosion.
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 Agriculture in Ethiopia is heavily dependent on rain. 95 percent of the total

agricultural output comes from bout 11.7 million individual smallholder

peasant farmers.

 The fact that agriculture is largely traditional and rain fed make it dependent on

weather conditions.

 This makes the issue of climate change particularly important for Ethiopia.

 Studies indicated that, over a 50-year period, the projected reduction in

agricultural productivity may lead to 30 percent less average income,

compared with the possible outcome in the absence of climate change.

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 Continued climate change is expected to bring greater
variability and extreme weather events which will further drive
degradation of the country’s ecosystems and exacerbate the
problem of food insecurity and malnutrition.

 The problem of water scarcity and pollution worsens as a result

of climate change.

 Water availability in Ethiopia has dramatically reduced in rivers,

streams, lakes and reservoirs.
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 For instance, climate change in conjunction with human activities
triggered by climate related disasters have killed Lake Haromaya.

 Lake Tana, Lake Ziway and River Awash water resources are also under
threat.

 There is great fear and challenge of meeting the demands of the

escalating population and its demand on water needs for food
production, irrigation, domestic, municipal, industrial, and energy uses.

 Besides the economic and other impacts, the other devastating impacts
include emergence and proliferation of vector borne and water borne
diseases.
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 Hence, ecosystem is shifting in a pace difficult to cope
with. Bio-diversity losses are quite phenomenal.

 Furthermore, farm power and household fuel supply is

endangered by changed climate, and this has led to
desperate actions that culminated in de-vegetation.