By Tadesse Nigatu
October 15, 2015
“What we are doing to our forests is but a mirror reflection of what we are doing to ourselves and to one another.” – Chris Maser, Forest Primeval: The Natural History of an Ancient Forest
I hope you will agree with Chris Maser. I do too. Here is why.
You may have wondered why a collapse of much smaller organs such as kidney, lung, heart or even the brain can cause serious sickness or collapse of the whole body. That is, because the whole body is made by interdependent organs and functions as a system.
A nation is also a system but a much larger system composed of smaller sub-systems which themselves can have yet smaller sub-systems so on and so forth. In a system, the components or sub-systems are interacting with each other and have inseparable links. In a properly functioning system, the components, not only interact with each other but also are dependent on each other. Even though each component in a system has its own role to play; but it does that in tandem with the other sub-systems.
As any nation, Ethiopia is made up of various sub-systems such as economic, political, educational, the land, the river, the forest, the lakes, the wild and domestic animals etc. The sub-systems are interdependent to the point that one can not exist without the other.
All sub-system of a country do not have equal influence on each other. Some are more influential than others. The most influential sub-system is the one that has the most interlinks with the other sub-systems. We see this in the political or the Government sub-system that has the most interlinks and therefore the most influential in most underdeveloped nations such as ours. This means that if the operational motive of the government (dominant) sub-system is not in tandem with the motives of the other sub-systems; then the whole system is in trouble. This is because it is dragging all the other sub-systems to stagnation, deterioration and then causing their collapse. Deterioration and collapse of a large system can also be caused by any malfunctioning sub-system just as a malfunctioning organ can cause the collapse of a human.
Most or all of the sub-systems in Ethiopia are not functioning properly. That is, that, the whole country is sick. But we cannot cover them all in this short article. We will focus on the forest sub-system.
So, let’s look at the Ethiopian forest sub-system a bit closer. Let’s start with some facts from 2004 FAO (world food and agriculture Organization) country report. The facts are ten years old but they still are valid. If anything, things are worse now. Here they are.
The total surface area of Ethiopia is estimated to be 110,000,000 hectares (Wikipedia). According to FAO (2004), of this, only 4.6 million hectares are forest which is about 4.2 % of the total area. Just a hundred years ago, 30% of Ethiopia’s land was covered with forests. The rate of deforestation in Ethiopia is about 40,000 hectares a year due to farm land clearing, cooking fuel and constructions. This figure does not include the yearly deforestation from fire, grazing and erosion which is estimated to be at least 10,000 hectares per year.
If we put two and two together, we are losing about 50,000 hectares of trees a year from human and wild fire deforestation. This means, at this rate, Ethiopia will lose all of its forests (4,600,000 /50,000= 92) in about 92 years! Ethiopia has just a century to live!!
To get a perspective of what a loss of 50,000 hectares a year to deforestation means, I looked to see how big Addis Ababa is. Addis Ababa is 52,700 hectares wide. That is right! We are losing the size of Addis every year to deforestation. What makes it hard to visualize this type of lose is that it is not taking place on just one area in a massive way and in short time. It is taking place all over the country, that is, in a very large area, one tree at a time over a longer time. This slow disappearance of trees is what makes it difficult to notice the deforestation quickly.
What would you say or do if an invader from outside occupies that much land from our country just once let alone every year? This is a clear threat to our nation. Ethiopia is, in the words of Saure, (from John Reader book, Africa) “one of the world’s greatest and oldest centers of domestic plants”. This is worrisome! Because normally deforestation is followed by desertification.
In a country where citizens have the right to shape their destiny through the democratic process, the people would have already taken care of their forests. Or it won’t even be an issue in the first place and we wouldn’t be talking about it here. Now, the question is: what to do about it?
It is clear that our nation’s forests are in deep trouble. If citizens wait for the government to fix the problem, we will be waiting for very, very long time during which time we lose even more forests. We need to do what is possible to save our nation. We need to find out ways to bring back our forests. I think the first question to ask is what are the everyday things we do to lose our trees (forests)?
You see, for the most part, we lose one tree at a time when millions of us cut it either for fire, or to build a house or make furniture. Here, each of us is thinking that the one tree that each cuts does not hurt a forest. But if each of the millions of us cut just one tree a year, we will be cutting millions trees. This hurts the forest.
It is fair that we need firewood to cook our foods and houses to shelter ourselves etc. There is nothing wrong with cutting trees for those purposes. But if each of us, citizens, cut that many trees year after year; it is obvious that we will deplete our forests.
True, trees can grow on their own naturally. But not at the rate we are cutting them today. Besides, it take years for a tree to grow and be ready for cutting. But what if we plant one, two, or even more trees, for each tree we cut and we make sure it gets what it needs to grow?
Citizens are the most powerful members of a system even when under undemocratic systems. We just have to believe in ourselves and in each other. We have to also be patriotic enough to save our country from this hidden enemy– deforestation. Of course we have to respect each other and our environment. Then we need to get to work individually as well as in teams starting with our own yards planting one tree at a time and making sure that it gets what it needs to grow. We have to help each other by sharing knowledge and experience and lending hands. Once we take care of our yards, we move on to neighbor hills and then to mountains to cover them with trees. If we do that before we know it, in just few years’ time, we can regain our forests.
As we do that, we at the same time, will create strong bond among ourselves, realize how powerful we can be, develop the culture of trust, respect and hard work. This in turn builds confidence in us assuring that nothing can stop a united citizens for a just and common cause. United and confident we can then move on to solve our next problem (fix the sickest sub-system). Let’s be good to our forests and to each other.
To be effective, let’s abide by the following forest and people friendly rules in everything we do.
· Work Hard Earn living by your sweat and avoid what is not yours
· seek the truth Seek knowledge, experiment, reason with facts, Teach, learn
· Be Patriotic Love your people and country, be generous and helpful
· Be Fair Serve justice, treat with equality, be honest
· Respect Be respectful to people, their rights and the environment
· Seek Peace Be tolerant, resolve conflict peacefully
· Pursue Happiness Enjoy life, have fun
The writer can be reached at tadniga44@gmail.com