Attempts at this type of progress are evident at the government-run Ethiopian Biodiversity Institute, where Lemessa and his team of researchers scour the nation for endemic, rare and endangered plant species to protect. While their goals include conservation of the unique genetic resources native to Ethiopia’s forests as well as education on the importance of biodiversity, Lemessa has even bigger plans.
“The benefit of this natural resource, the forest, is transboundary,” he says. “When we grow one plant here it has a positive impact on the U.S.A. in terms of climate regulation … and since you cannot produce people’s oxygen in a laboratory, we have to conserve forests!”
Though Lemessa cracks these science jokes about his field, the work he and his team are doing is serious. The biodiversity institute is home to a network of nearly four dozen sites across the country that serve as labs, in-habitat incubators, and seed banks for the protection and proliferation of indigenous plant species key to countering climate change. These efforts are aimed at maintaining the fragile ecological range that comes with managing a topography that varies as widely as Ethiopia’s.
From the depths of the Rift Valley, 126 meters (410 feet) below sea level, to the elevations of the highlands at 4,620 meters (15,160 feet), it’s easy to imagine the magnitude of Lemessa’s challenge. Selassie Heckett agrees it’s an uphill battle.
The interests of Selassie Heckett, a woman dedicated to preventing more forestry experiments like Entoto, and Boka, a woman who depends on this very model continuing in order to survive, may seem at odds. Yet they’re connected by faith and by their dependence on the resilience of Ethiopia’s wide-ranging landscapes. Asked what’s the hardest part about the work they do, they give the same response: “Life.”
Banner image: The primary reason for large plantations of Eucalyptus is for cooking. Here a woman makes a traditional non-alcoholic beer served at Islamic celebrations. Photo by Christopher Lett/Mongabay.
Christopher Lett is a photographer and former producer and researcher for CNN and a 2018-2019 Ted Scripps Fellow in Environmental Journalism at the University of Colorado Boulder. You can find him on Twitter at @kolmec.
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Citations:
1.) Menelik and the Foundation of Addis Ababa Author(s): Richard Pankhurst Source: The Journal of African History, Vol. 2, No. 1 (1961), pp. 103-117 Published by: Cambridge University Press
2.) Women Fuelwood Carriers and the Supply of Household Energy in Addis Ababa Author(s): Fekerte Haile Source: Canadian Journal of African Studies / Revue Canadienne des Études Africaines, Vol. 23, No. 3 (1989), pp. 442-451
3.) A Spatio-Temporal Analysis of Deforestation in Ethiopia: With Particular Reference to the Environs of Addis Ababa Author(s): Mekete Belachew Source: Journal of Ethiopian Studies, Vol. 32, No. 1 (June 1999), pp. 89-131
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