“The solutions to today’s complex problems are embarrassingly simple,” says Tony Rinaudo, the Australian agronomist who named a natural process he saw decades ago in Niger. He discovered that the stumps all over the landscape were actually the tops of trees that reached far down into the soil, and when farmers planted around them instead of clearing them, trees grew.
He called it “farmer managed natural regeneration,” and it regreened Niger and then went on to foster tree growth all over sub-Saharan Africa. When he begins explaining it, he says, “people are expecting some big scientific explanation and complex machinery and all this kind of thing, and it’s embarrassingly simple. But I’m not ashamed, because it works.”
I was so delighted to hear him say that, because it is something that I have been thinking the more I read about how people all over the world have restored the land and water on which they—and indirectly, we—rely on to sustain their families.
Ethiopia was once known as the “Garden of Eden” because so much of its land—66%—was covered with forests. Forests and woodlands were cleared during the last 150 years, so forested land was reduced to 16% of the country. By 1982, only 3.1% remained.
Rain dried up, so did springs, and people and animals suffered terribly during many droughts. Between 1982 and 1985, famine killed many, filling western TV screens with devastating news and appeals for aid. While many people still think of Ethiopia that way, the country has been working to change its deserts into farmland and forest where water now flows.
Communities, using their local knowledge and advice from experts like Rinaudo, are transforming the land through a variety of rain and water harvesting strategies, like terraces, deep trenches, check dams, and percolation ponds.
Much like China’s Loess Plateau, hard work by community residents has transformed a landscape. Communities have moved an estimated 90 million tons of soil and rock across Ethiopia to restore about one million hectares. Wide terraces and other water harvesting techniques let rainwater soak into the ground and raise the water table, turning the area green.
The video How They Transformed Desert Into Fertile Farmland & Forests shows how they did it.
One of the most amazing of the stories is how forests returned to 2,700 hectares of degraded land at Humbo, an area in southern Ethiopia that had been racked by famine and where communities received food aid year after year. Not only did it bring forests back to a huge area, it has brought great economic benefits to the area’s residents. Climate change mitigation, sustainable land management, and livelihood improvement can work hand in hand.
Three years after the project began in 2006, the changes in vegetation were so pronounced that the celebration of Ethiopia’s national environment day took place at the Humbo project site. Community members also noted an increase in biodiversity (wildlife and birds) in the surrounding forests.
The Humbo Mountain Afforestation Project, approved in 2009, was Ethiopia’s first Clean Development Mechanism project and Africa’s first large-scale project registered under the United Nation Framework Convention on Climate Change. The project was the first in Africa to generate temporary Certified Emission Reductions.
It took time for the community to grasp that the forest could bring them money, and it took two years after World Vision identified the hills around Humbo as suitable for a large reforestation project before the project began. The project’s success was anchored in a simple idea and the community’s capacity to manage the forest, their cooperatives, and their own affairs.
Farmer Managed Natural Regeneration (FMNR) is a simple concept, says Rinaudo. You identify the living stumps, select the ones you want to regrow, prune the shoots so that three to five remain, and continue to care for and protect those shoots. After much consultation with the community, the Ethiopian government, and the World Bank, 2,728 hectares were selected for the community-managed natural regeneration project and the World Bank provided US$200,000 for the project.
In 2012, the project was issued 73,339 carbon credits, with similar payments expected to add up to $700,000 over the next 10 years from the BioCarbon Fund. During its 30-year lifespan, the forest is expected to remove and store 800,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide.
“The communities have earned $84,000 for the carbon sequestered so far in the forest,” Rinaudo wrote in 2012, “and the seven cooperatives are using it for development projects to benefit the communities. Such projects include the purchase of a grain mill, building storage infrastructure, and investing in transportation to reach bigger markets.” The coops also assist people who have been disadvantaged by helping them take up sewing or trading.
Each one of the seven cooperatives has a plan and bylaws for managing its part of the forest, including livestock management, forest guards, and firefighting awareness, skills, and procedures. People need permission to enter the forest, and this is granted for working bee populations and harvesting grass and previously pruned branches.
The Ethiopian government and the World Bank now recognize the Humbo project as a model for successful restoration of forests.
“What makes this project so special to me,” the World Bank’s Edward Dwumfour wrote in 2012, “is that what started with a small grant of $200,000 had such enormous impacts on this community, now financing all kinds of micro activities such as beekeeping, fattening of cattle, and milling flour, which before had to be done far away.”
The grain store allows the community to hold its grain for sale during the time when food is scarce and sellers can get a better price, while the flour mill means farmers don’t have to rent donkeys to take their grain to the nearby town to mill. A series of community enterprises have developed, including fattening cattle for sale, firewood sales, clothes tailoring, and beekeeping.
As well as grass biomass harvest for animal feed, sale, and house construction, cooperative members also have used the carbon income to establish a saving and credit association, a retail shop for basic industrial items, and potable water sources. Cooperative members also benefited from sale of grass, tree seed, honey, and branches for fuel wood. The landscape is used as a ground for sharing and learning experience with schools and visitors from different areas.
Not so long ago, “the flood from the mountain used to wash away all of the crops, turning the farmland into gullies and stones, and destroying my properties, including our homes,” says Katimar, 50, who has lived at Humbo Mountain all his life. “My farm’s yield decreased from two tonnes per hectare to one, putting my family at risk of food insecurity.” The flooding caused some villagers to rely on relief food each year, while others went to cities in search of work to support their families.
Today, as regeneration of the Humbo forest has reinstated the fertility of the farmland downstream, Katimar has seen the change. “My land’s productivity has increased by twofold as a result of the plentiful moisture reserves. We produce two times each year using moisture. I used to cultivate primarily grain crops, but thanks to World Vision, I now grow vegetables and fruits that increase our revenues and food alternatives. I also raise seedlings of various types and sell them. Now, we can put adequate food on the table.”
“Integrated landscape management is important to me because it brings together human needs in a way that’s sustainable for the future generation while giving additional income and improving the livelihood of the people who use it,” says Meseret Bekele Toma, who coordinated the Humbo project. “It integrates upstream and downstream needs within one landscape. This landscape is a unique project in both Ethiopia and Africa which has widespread benefits.”
Sources
How a small grant turned Humbo green. Development and a Changing Climate blog, World Bank. Oct. 11, 2012
How They Transformed Desert Into Fertile Farmland & Forests. Leaf of Life Films, Jan. 21, 2024
A Barren, Perilous Mountain Restores and Pays Back the Community World Vision Ethiopia
