The World Development Committee - Whose Earth?

Whose Earth?

   Background
   Ethiopia
   Hondouras
   Phillipines
   Children's Talk
   Biblical Reflection
   Eco Ideas
   Prayers
   Downloads

Focus on Ethiopia

Background: In Ethiopia 80% of the population lives on about £1 or €1.5 a day. Environmental degradation, caused largely by deforestation, has led to poor soil quality through the top-soil being washed away. This has accelerated a downward spiral of increased poverty and famine. Deforestation has also led to climate change: without trees to regulate cycles of rainfall, drought has become more recurrent and hunger more prevalent. The majority of people in Ethiopia struggle to access enough food each year and approximately 50% of children under 5 are small for their age and underweight. Conserving the environment and working with it in ecologically sensitive ways are central to good development work in Ethiopia. In the big picture, working with the environment cuts the amount of carbon in the atmosphere and contributes to a viable long-term future for the poor.

Feeding the Hungry; Caring for the Land; Cutting the Carbon: Our Tearfund partner, the Full Gospel Believers' Church of Ethiopia, is working in Amhara district, a mountainous area with steep slopes known for its low agricultural production. High population growth and migration into the area by surrounding lowland communities suffering the effects of drought have resulted in overgrazing and deforestation. Once deforested or overgrazed the mountain slopes are very vulnerable to soil erosion, for when the rains do come there is nothing to stop the soil simply being washed down the mountainside. In lowland areas, overgrazing and deforestation in an era of climate change leads to desertification. Together, these factors limit local food production for both people and animals, resulting in food shortages and low income. At the same time, the cumulative impact of local deforestation contributes to global warming by adding to the level of carbon in the air.

In this challenging context, the Full Gospel Believers' Church has motivated the local community of 40,000 people to make their own assessments of land degradation and then empowered them on the best conservation measures to take. These have focused on improving land quality through limiting deforestation, reducing soil erosion and retaining water. Trees have been planted; soil embankments or bunds have been built so that water does not run off the land; drains have been designed to irrigate rather than just direct water; fuel-efficient stoves have been introduced to limit the need for firewood.

The community has demonstrated its commitment to this environmentally friendly approach and as a result food security has improved as crop yields have increased.

Mulu Abate, a 35 year-old mother of six, is someone who has benefited from the advice of the Full Gospel Believers' Church. Her plot of land lies on the lower slopes of a mountain and in the period before adopting more environmentally friendly farming methods her land was regularly devastated by flooding and landslides while crops were growing. This, she says: "was very painful as the return was just very scant production, insufficient to sustain the family's life even for a few months, let alone to ensure their annual food needs." Now, however, she has been encouraged to plant seedlings to improve her land, and fence off an area for cultivation. Mulu insists: "thanks to the project our land is saved from serious soil erosion... we have even started earning money..."

When we support this year's Whose Earth?-Cut the Carbon World Development Appeal, we support communities creating a viable long-term future for themselves, we enable communities to reduce their carbon emissions, and we challenge ourselves to adopt more sustainable, less carbon dependent lifestyles.