By Awdenegest Moges, Rediet Girma & Wolde Mekuria
A two-day outreach program in Halaba, Ethiopia aimed to motivate and inspire farmers on community-led landscape restoration efforts by showcasing tangible outcomes of rehabilitation initiatives. About 240 farmers visited diverse landscape management efforts, including gully rehabilitation using bamboo plantations and community-based watershed development activities. The activity was a joint initiative of the Hawassa University, the International Water Management Institute (IWMI), and Aberdeen University, in collaboration with the agricultural office.
Farmers saw the effective use of bamboo for controlling gully floor erosion and rehabilitation, learning that large gullies, averaging 24 m wide at the top, 19-20 m at the bottom, and 3.6 m deep, can be rehabilitated with simple technologies and family labor. They also saw that combining bamboo plantations with soil and water conservation measures enhanced gully restoration. Notably, soil bunds successfully held soil, raising the headward side and reducing gully depth. Additionally, the bamboo grew vigorously, providing an income for the family.
Anteneh Zenebe, Head of the Natural Resource Management Directorate of the district agricultural office, highlighted that while the gully floor rehabilitation using bamboo plantations and family labor may seem simple, it plays a significant role in controlling the widespread gully erosion problem in Halaba.
After visiting the rehabilitated area, farmers reflected on the valuable lessons learned from both individual and community efforts. They praised the villagers’ dedication to transferring fertile lands to future generations and admired the remarkable change in the degraded land. Kedir Hussein, an expert from the District Agricultural Office, emphasized the need for farmers to take the initiative and work with agricultural offices to restore degraded landscapes. He added that these efforts benefit not only the farmers but also future generations. According to Hussein, the key to success in rehabilitating degraded land lies in promoting and implementing assisted exclosures.
Replicating success
The outreach program covered a visit to soil and water conservation measures implemented through the annual campaigns conducted since 2021. Farmers observed various soil and water conservation practices, including stone bunds, trenches, stone-faced soil bunds, and Acacia Saligna plantations. One of the key lessons learned during the visit was the importance of maintenance of soil and water conservation practices to sustain benefits. Most of the participating farmers indicated that the outreach program was instrumental in understanding the success stories and replicating similar efforts in their respective areas.
Ato Ahmedin, the Head of the District Agricultural Office, underscored the critical role of community participation in ensuring sustainable land management and encouraged continued collaboration. His remarks, coupled with the detailed briefing provided by Ato Hararso, who highlighted the progress made over the past three years, reinforced the importance of collective action in achieving environmental and social resilience.
Awdenegest Moges, Associate Professor and the SMILE project lead noted that such an outreach program is instrumental for awareness creation as well as enhancing commitment of farmers to be engaged in land rehabilitation. This particular visit demonstrated how individual and community-level work could make a difference. Participants can promote both levels of participation in their respective kebeles as they learned from the visit. Moreover, researchers have a lot to learn from the local-level engagements in shaping workable solutions to problems of land degradation elsewhere.
Wolde Mekuria, a Senior Researcher at IWMI, added that outreach programs, such as the case in Halaba, Ethiopia, play a crucial role in shaping farmers’ knowledge and understanding of affordable gully rehabilitation methods, as well as their physical, natural, and human resources, and the time needed for interventions. These programs are essential to empower farmers to take action and to help overcome doubts about their ability to make a difference.
Overall, these outreach programs demonstrated the power of community-driven initiatives in providing practical insights into the benefits of restoration efforts, fostered awareness, and encouraged farmers to participate and engage in ongoing and future rehabilitation efforts as well as implement restoration measures in their initiatives.
This work was carried out through the Reversing Environmental Degradation in Africa and Asia – Local-level land degradation assessment towards Sustainable land Management for Improved Livelihood in the Ethiopian Rift Valley (REDAA – SMILE) project.
