Academic literature on the topic 'Environmental management – Ethiopia'

Changes in the environment require a range of responses and adaptations at different levels. One of the levels where adaptation is needed is at the community level in developing countries. This research evaluated the effectiveness of participatory video when used to articulate and communicate messages of adaptation to environmental change.

Ethiopia's forest resource base, which is mostly found in the southwestern highlands, supports a multitude of agricultural production systems. However, similar to the trend in other parts of the developing world, deforestation has taken a heavy toll in this part of Ethiopia. Cognisant of this, recently policies and strategies have been devised that emphasise the need for citizens' participation in natural forest management. Yet, in Ethiopia there is little field-based analytical literature that throws light on the stake that villagers have in forest resources and the workings of local level forest access channels. Against this backdrop, the research examines state-community and intra-community relationships in the course of accessing forest resources under governments of widely differing political persuasions, and investigates the current importance of forests to the local household economy. This is achieved through a case study of six forest communities in a rural district of highland Kafa, southwest Ethiopia. The study employs a time line approach to trace the evolution of state-community interactions in the provision and administration of forest tenure at the local level. To this end, the research has examined the political history of Kafa and the land management policies of successive Ethiopian governments that had a bearing on local forest access and use. The broader themes of the research are informed by the literature on natural resource tenure establishment and household level forest use in agrarian systems and the discourse on management regimes in common pool resources. The research has established that throughout much of Kafa's history forests were accessed through customary tenure principles. However, following Kafa's incorporation into the Ethiopian State the central government became an important organ of forest allocation, and this situation favoured outsiders and local notables in acquiring private forest rights. The 1975 Land Reform decree extinguished all such claims, bestowed the State with exclusive land ownership rights, and created grassroots Peasant Associations (PAs) with a wide range of land administration roles. The PAs in some localities allocated village forests to rural households. Crucially, though, the State used its land ownership prerogatives to impose a range of measures that went contrary to the forest access interests of the local people. Formal state tenure notwithstanding, traditional principles and channels of forest access such as territoriality, patrilineal descent, and share cropping continue to play critical roles in the local tenure scene. These locally tailored mechanisms also command the protection and enforcement to which other formally recognised forest access channels have been accorded. The factors that permitted the co-existence of formal and informal means of access have also called for the involvement of traditional community-based organisations (CBOs) alongside state sponsored ones in the mediation of local access provision and dispute settlement. The empirical analysis underscores that local people stake forest resources with the view to producing forest goods, which are found to be important livelihood resources. Forest dependency, however, reflects the socio-economic differentiation existing in the study communities. The operational implications which the research draws are based primarily on the observed high degree of dependence of local people on the forest for their livelihoods and the communal ethos that characterise forest access provision and tenure enforcement. Finally, the influence of past patterns of access principles on the current situation; the divergent outcomes of the forest use process; and the local importance of forest goods has enabled the research to identify issues that would enrich the discourse on common property theory. These centre on the relevance of 'stewardship' in the study of resource access; the utility of examining inter-CBO interactions in the analysis of CPR access and management; the need to look beyond the 'tragedyTcomedy' dichotomy in the conceptualisation of resource management outcomes; and the desirability of re-orienting the discourse on CPR analysis towards development ideals contained in the notion of'the sustainable community'.

Ethiopia has been challenged by multidimensional poverty. However, it has the potential to minimize the threat through an integrated multipurpose development process. In this regard, hydropower has a significant role to reduce energy poverty and enhance the multipurpose use of natural resources efficiency. Hydropower is a source of clean, sustainable and renewable energy. It has a contribution to reducing carbon emission and maintaining environmental sustainability. In Ethiopia, it is the major source of electricity. The country is rich in natural resources, including water to produce energy, however, electricity supply is still uncertain. The data shows that the country has the potential to produce 50,000 MW energy from water resources. Yet, it exploited 3,822 MW in 2018, approximately 7.6 % of its potential. Moreover, the country faces issues with energy security. Additionally, water and food supply also face an uncertain future. In this case, the country has planned the growth and transformation plan I and II for 2015 and 2020 to increase the energy production to 10,000 MW and 17,000 MW energy respectively. Consequently, the government launched different multipurpose hydropower plant projects. This project focuses on the multipurpose use of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam, particularly for the sustainable energy-water-food-ecosystem service nexus at the national level. I applied the combination of methods such as the energy-water-food-ecosystem nexus, the SWOT analysis and the sustainability assessment as they are suitable for the complexity of such a project. Indeed, the GERD has benefits for the country in producing renewable and clean energy, generating income and increasing the water storage capacity at the national level. However, the project neglected the values of ecosystem services integration with the dam and its sectors. As a result, the dam affected the existed terrestrial biodiversity and ecosystem. Therefore, the GERD had not been the well-prepared plan that considers institutional cooperation and sectoral integration to use for multipurpose function and its sustainability. In these regards, unless the dam to take proper management of the project and natural resources, the hydropower plant would not have been generating sustainable energy production.<br><p>The paper shows that how to use the reservoir hydropower plant for multipurpose, such as for energy, water, food, ecosystem services integration at local level</p>