June 14, 2012

A Climate Change Challenge in the Escarpments of Danakil Depression

Farmers are already noticing the impacts of climatic change on their crop yields and water supplies. The Landscapes Blog has covered climate-smart agriculture, particularly when applied at a landscape scale, as a means to boost the adaptive capacity of agricultural systems and those who rely on them for food and income. Today’s post is by Hailu Araya, PhD, the Sustainable Community Development Team Leader at the Institute for Sustainable Development and co-founder of the Best Practice Association in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. It documents the experience and observations of one agro-pastoralist in Ethiopia, and describes how the communities in the region are beginning to respond to climatic shifts.

Hajji Ilalta Ibrahim is an agro-pastoralist. He lives in Ab’ala District of Zone 2 of the Afar region in Ethiopia with his 10 children, five boys and five girls. Ab’ala is about 60-70 km east of Mekelle, capital city of the Tigray Region. Zone 2 of the Afar Region is where the Danakil Depression of the East Africa Rift Valley occurred.

From his life experience and observation, Hajji could relate the impact of climate change to agricultural activities, comparing the previous and the existing situation around the Ab’ala area of the Afar region. In the old times, before 1970s, (according to him in the time of Ras Mengesha*), rainfall normally began in March and stopped in September. At that time the forest cover was dense and healthy. The hills around were grassy and covered by trees, like Mezbae, Asmale, and Kola. Now all the plants are gone, even the trees that provided shade, shrubs for goats, and grass for grazing cattle.

The big shallow water-point where cattle go to drink did not dry out year to year. Even for rich families with more than 1000 cattle, there were no problems with feed and drinking water. But these days, water-points have dried.

In our area, there was a plant called ‘Kushra/Kinshira’ in Afar language, ’Gava’ in Tigrigna, and ‘Kurkura’ in Amharic, which grew at the edge of rivers. Even people from Mekelle and Kuiha used to come here, pluck the fruits of the plant up to 4 quintals, and take it to towns to make a living by selling. I remember there was another plant called ‘Garsa,’ which people used for food. But now these plants have become extinct.

Grains of different kinds of Sorghum like Degalit, Humera and Jegerti were planted around March and harvested in October or November. We never harvested maize alone on a wide field in this season, but we used to plant it together with sorghum. This is because maize matures early, and we feed it to our children and cattle.

Through our traditional knowledge, mainly by observing our cattle, we used to understand the rainfall situation. But the rainfall condition started to change especially after 1980,  and nobody could predict whether rainfall would come early or later or never at all. And so drought appeared, following the erratic rainfall in 1983/84, the Great Ethiopian Drought. Many human and animal lives in Ab’ala were lost. The rest of the people went to Mekelle and Kuiha feeding camps. The war between the Military Government and Woyane aggravated the situation. Heavy rainfall and massive flood followed the drought, destroying all the crops and trees. Even those ‘Gava’ and ‘Garsa’ trees that had grown near rivers and which had not been dried during the drought season were swept away.  Then drought came again in 1987.

Even though the drought didn’t appear again for ten years (1988-1998), it was difficult to depend on the unreliable rainfall, making the harvest of sorghum problematic. Because crop yields are reduced and some have failed altogether, we are trying to adjust ourselves to the changing conditions.  Since 2009, we have been working with Development Agents working on catchments, filling gullies and ploughing gully beds. We use the running water coming from the highlands of Eastern Tigray for maize, barely, and other grains. We harvested more sorghum in 2010, and also produced fruits and vegetables using irrigation water. This is because we don’t trust the rain. We have to use our knowledge and the help of DAs to protect the community from drought. Moreover we are reducing the cattle size and tending to raise camels and goats that can resist drought.

This is challenging as we are losing all the natural resources we have. Considering the plight that hurt us so far, we believe we have to face the challenges and better adapt to the situation.

*Ras Mengesha Seyoum was Governor General of Tigray and Afar regions during Emperor Haile Selassie’s regime.

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