The Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR and World Agroforestry (ICRAF) joined forces in 2019, leveraging a combined 65 years’ experience in research on the role of forests and trees in solving critical global challenges.
The Lake Tana Sub-Basin accounts for approximately 50% of the total surface water in Ethiopia, and is therefore directly responsible for a substantial proportion of soil losses in fertile land, approximately 31-50tons per hectare per year. A degraded resource base can reduce the capacity of a landscape to retain rainfall, increasing surface runoff resulting in decreased productivity. Which in turn, further exacerbates degradation processes, due to a range of physical and social drivers. Resulting in a vicious negative cycle.
In response to this, the Ethiopian government, in association with the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), has established the Community Based Integrated Natural Resource Management Project (CBINReMP)_ to establish soil and water conservation legislation and to implement an action plan that aims at reducing degradation process in Amhara regional state. Restoring the land to a productive system that allows for agriculture and biodiversity to
flourish beyond its current capacity.
A primary focus of the project is to reduce free grazing and increase stall feeding of cattle, to overcome the negative footprint of livestock overstocking in the area. Exclosure of communal grazing lands and the implementation of cut and carry systems has been key to this. The guiding principle being that livestock are kept within households and fodder is cut by hand and brought to animals. Reducing trampling and grazing of ecologically valuable tree and shrub seedlings that are important to rehabilitating degraded soils.
A previous study conducted by IFAD in collaboration with the World Agroforestry Centre (ICRAF), highlighted that the systems successfully increased biodiversity and water infiltration in exclosed areas. Rejuvenating the land by anchoring soils and providing adequate ground water for increases in floral biomass on agricultural and pastural lands.
Exclosure Zone |
Adjacent Open Grazing Land |
Despite this biophysical success, informal discussions in the field showed that the system was not as effective as it could be, and that there were several social and administrative issues underlying project implementation causing this inefficiency. Considering this, a follow-up social study, to investigate the root causes of these issues and to identify areas of the project that could be improved upon to enhance the positive impact of its actions and to provide important lessons for future investments.
This study is conducted by Jack Rossiter of Imperial College and is supported by the project Restoration of degraded land for food security and poverty reduction in East Africa and the Sahel: taking successes in land restoration to scale, funded by IFAD and the European Commission,
The research followed a grounded theory approach of open ended questioning to tease out the primary issues in the implementation process. Three sampling sites were chosen across three Woredas (administrative zones) of the Gilgel Abay sub-basin. Over 120 participants were surveyed from the various levels of the administrative scale, to identify perspectives of project inefficiency from both a top down and bottom up lens. It was found that issues in the project were largely the same at the higher administrative scales as in the lowest (farm level). However, greater technical expertise at the highest levels provided deeper insights into the inner workings of the project.
Primary observations from the field activities show that there are several issues related to effective implementation of the project. These issues range from ecological to legislative with many factors in between. The outputs of this research aim to provide options for adaptive management to improve the projects efficiency in the future and to produce lessons learnt for the future implementation of projects focused on land rehabilitation in communal grazing areas. Additionally, the research highlights the necessity of incorporating extensive biological and social pilot and literature studies prior to implementation, to ensure that the methods used are appropriate to the socio-ecological system that they are operating in.
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