Fjölrit RALA - 05.12.1999, Page 77

RALA Reportno. 200
Desertification in Ethiopian highlands
Tamirie Hawando1
Norwegian ChurchA/D, P.O. Box 101351, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
Tel: 251 1 612449; Fax: 251 1 51S167
ABSTRACT
Ethiopia is severely affected by recurring droughts and slowly advancing desertifícation processes.
During the 1972/73, 80/81 and 84/85 drought and famine years, the social and the economic devel-
opment of arid, semi-arid and dry sub-humid areas of the country were seriously affected. The
1984/85 drought claimed the lives of more than two hundred thousand people and millions of live-
stock.
Ethiopian land which falls within the UNEP’s defmition of desertification is estimated to cover
71.5% of the country’s total land area. Overgrazing, deforestation, poor farming practices and using
dung for fuel are the major causes of land degradation in Ethiopia. An estimated 70-75% of Ethio-
pia’s livestock population is concentrated in the highlands. The recorded annual soil erosion (surface
soil movement) in Ethiopia ranges ffom low of 16 tons/ha/yr to high of 300 tons/ha/yr depending
mainly on the slope, land cover, and rainfall intensities. The totál estimated annual soil loss (surface
soil movement) from the cultivated, range and pasture lands (780,000 km2) in Ethiopia is estimated to
range from low of 1.3 to an average of 7.8 billion metric tons per year.
An Ethiopian highland reclamation study (FAO 1984) put the degraded area on the highlands at 27
million ha of which, 14 million hectares is very seriously eroded with 2 million ha of this having
reached a point of no retum. The Ethiopian govemment has carried out a massive soil and water con-
servation scheme through a “food for work” programme. But the magnitude of land degradation and
the vastness of degraded land is so large that the impacts of conservation work seem comparatively
small when viewed from a national perspective. The absence of ownership of land and other forms of
benefit sharing and incentives, have been a major draw back. Conservation based sustainable devel-
opment strategy guided by full grassroot participation is recommended. Resource ownership rights,
appropriate land use pians at community level, intensification of production with the application of
small scale irrigation integrated with local knowledge, and instituting proper population pressure re-
leasing mechanisms are key areas to be considered.
Key words: Ethiopia, desertification, people participation, soil conservation, soil erosion.
INTRODUCTION
The dryland areas in Ethiopia which fall within the range of UNEP’s defmition of de-
sertification cover 860,000 km2, or 71.5% of the country’s total land area. This zone is
an important annual crop and livestock production zone. The drylands in Ethiopia oc-
cur frorn below sea level (Afar depression in the north-east) to 2700 m elevation. Ex-
amination and analysis of the climatic data ffom 250 stations throughout the country
show that the drylands receive annual rainfall ranging from 28-1117 mm, have annual
potential evapo-transpiration rates ranging ffom 1312-2832 mm and a ratio of
RR/PET ranging ffom 0.05-0.65 (Figure 1, Table 1).
The dominant man induced causes of land degradation in the drylands of Ethiopia
are poor farming practices, population pressure, overgrazing, soil erosion, deforesta-
tion, salinity and alkalinity problems, and the use of livestock manure and crop resi-
due for fuel as energy resource of the rural households (Cesen 1986, World Bank
1984). More than twenty seven million people live in the dry sub-humid, semi-arid
and arid areas, where the ratio of RR/PET is less than 0.65. The map on Figure 1 and
the data on Table 1 show the extent and the coverage of the areas in Ethiopia which
1 Regional Senior Consultant On Environment and Natural Resource Management.