From 1 Tree Comes a Forest - CPAR Plant a Tree

20 years ago CPAR planted a tree in Fliklik, a small village situated in one of the lowland regions of Gohatsion; 5 years later, the nursery was handed over to the community, and just 2 weeks ago, in the company of the initial coordinating Program Manager, Gizaw Shibru, the CPAR team returned to the Fliklik nursery some 1000m below our current base camp in Jarso woreda. We found the nursery thriving in the hands of about half-a-dozen village members being 'aided' by their curious and energetic young children. (Image Right: CPAR's Gizaw Shibru with Fliklik youths, 2010; Below: Me, teaching the community kids to "Give me 'amist'!")

The nursery is currently under the management of the zone Ministry of Agriculture office. The men and women who were so hard at work preparing the soil, planting seeds and stuffing the freshly turned earth into poly sacs, and maintaining the nursery, explained to us that this nursery has become a highly productive component of a nationwide income generation program. Community members take turns working at the nursery for a wage of 10Br/day (self-described as being relatively good compensation). The viable seeds are distributed by the Ministry at no cost to the recipient farmers who can, by imploring environmentally conservative modern agroforestry techniques and appropriate technologies, raise the seedlings to produce any of a variety of crops including but not limited to: eucalyptus, bamboo, mango, and coffee. These crops will in turn not only bring income into the household and provide his/her own family with greater food security and a naturally sustainable source of energy, but the greater region as well. (Image Left: Community members turning soil and explaining income generation program to CPAR staffs; Image Right: Female community member planting seedlings into poly sacs)

CPAR's approach to tree planting in rural Africa has evolved over the last 20years as we incorporate lessons learned and respond to the changing demands of the communities in which we work. While community-run demonstration nurseries such as the Fliklik nursery have been well-maintained and continue to produce enormous benefits for the surrounding population and the environment, in recent years, our planting efforts have become more decentralized. By providing program participants scattered throughout the program areas with necessary inputs and training, CPAR's Plant a Tree program as been able to reach far more people indirectly. (Image below left: Women working together, stuffing soil into poly sacs for planting; Image below red: Sheltered seedlings)

In Dibate woreda, located just 300km from the Sudanese border in the Benishangul-Gumuz region of Ethiopia where the indigenous people live and work in temperatures averaging 29degrees annually, we met with another CPAR program beneficiary, a father of 7, Destayo. Destayo is not just a success story; he has become a vital part of CPAR's Integrated Food Security program in the woreda. 3 years ago, CPAR provided Destayo with a number of inputs essential for any farmer to start a productive agricultural enterprise. These inputs included physical tools such as equipment and watering mechanisms, but also capacity building tools in the form of training on sustainable agroforestry and beekeeping methods. The CPAR Dibate team also helped Destayo to introduce a hardy, high-yield, non-GM variety of mango tree to his farm. Mango harvests are now much greater than they otherwise would have been. These farming activities, coupled with his coffee harvesting efforts, which this year yielded 50kgs of coffee beans, Destayo says, have enabled him to provide his family with better and sufficient food and to generate enough money to support them in a safe area. The older of Destayo's 7 children, help him maintain the farm as well as the small nursery which they have created of their own volition; the surplus income generated by their efforts is being saved for their own future academic pursuits. Destayo has drastically changed his circumstances just by planting tress in the last few years. He continues to pass on his hard-earned lessons to his neighbours who, inspired by his success, are now following in his footsteps. (Image Below: Destayo on his agro-farm showing CPAR staffs the products of his household-scale nursery)

The number of trees which have been planted under the umbrella of CPAR's various programs, number in the hundreds of millions. Tree planting is an invaluable sustainable activity which can be undertaken at both the household and agro forestry levels. When you consider the benefits of 1 tree, of 1 Nim tree which is incredibly resilient and has over 40 medicinal applications, or of 1 Eucalyptus tree, the stump of which is worth a minimum of 40ETB and is used in mass for construction purposes, the potential impact of hundreds of millions of trees on even the poorest people in rural Ethiopia can hardly be quantified. It is for these reasons that CPAR's Plant a Tree in Africa (PAT) project is once again being reinvigorated.

(Image above: A young girl lifts her little sister into her arms at the Millennium Plant a Tree site in Gohatsion zone. Theirs as well as generations to come will benefit from this tree nursery, seen in background, and others like it across Ethiopia.)

Steps Forward - Terracing

Much of the agricultural activity that goes on in the Gohatsion zone where CPAR-Ethiopia maintains a satellite base camp in Were-Jarso Woreda, can be described as semi-pastoralist. The vast majority of farmers in this district maintain small plots of land (approx. 5ha per capita) on which they also herd cattle, raise sheep/goats, and/or cultivate a variety of household-scale crops. The region is more commonly referred to simply as The Blue Nile Gorge; Jarso woreda is situated at the very top of the road which connects northern Oromia to the south. (Image Left: Herding cows; highland terracing site which prevents severe soil erosion)

Due to the dramatic contours of the terrain as well as the persistence of traditional agricultural practices which result in low productivity and often exhaustion of the soil (for example: clearing land via slashing and burning, turning soil by means of manual sowing, etc) food security in this area is a very real concern for arguably the entire population, currently over 161 000 people. (Image Right: Terraced highlands on lip of the Blue Nile Gorge, Jarso Woreda)

During the famine of the late 1980s and early 1990s, the CPAR team, based in the neighbouring town of Selale at the time, demonstrated an incredible ability to reach far beyond the boundaries of one town all the way into the lowlands of the gorge where the team extended training on terracing. Terracing is an agricultural technique of strategically leveling arable hillside land and dividing the wide-set ridges by planting rows of shrubs or lying stone for the purpose of cultivation. It is an effective tool used worldwide for improving soil conservation. Resultantly, terracing is promoted and implemented by CPAR and our program participants to this day as a means to prevent, deter, or halt erosion entirely, particularly now in the highland communities.

In addition to these benefits, terracing also reduces the waste of surface runoff waters which play a crucial part in the irrigation of crops, especially in Ethiopia, in rural regions such as Gohatsion, which are prone to severe droughts. (Image Above: Lowland slope terracing)

Terracing is a prime example of how careful management of environmental resources can positively impact the capacity of rural communities to prevent and cope with natural disasters from landslides, to droughts, to the resulting devastation of food insecurity crises and famines. (Image Above: Recently planted shrubs in highland area)