Ethiopia: A double standard on land related issues

Ethiopia: A double standard on land related issues

03 February, 2011 | By Desalegn Sisay
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Ethiopia Agriculture Ministry, last month, rejected a petition
to reconsider the lease of huge forestry lands to foreign
companies. Whilst local environmentalists argue that the land
lease would destroy large portions of forest lands and
contribute to drought, officials from the Agriculture Ministry
say otherwise.

Petitioners have

criticized a decision

to lease of large

portions of

forest

lands to foreign

entities following a

revelation that the

Ethiopian Agriculture

Ministry had leased

3012 hectares of

forest

lands in

Gambela Regional State to Verdanta Harvest Plc, an Indian
company.

In their quest to garner political support, inhabitants of the region
recently presented a petition containing over 1500 signatures to the
country’s president, Girma Wolde-Giorgis, requesting an immediate
rejection of the intended investment in order to protect the area
from deforestation.

Echoing the petition’s concerns, President Girma, an
environmentalist, raised the issue with Tefera Derebew Minister of
Agriculture who dismissed the petition. A move that led the
President to condemn the lease of forest lands for agricultural
purposes in an official letter addressed to the Ministry late last year.

“Whilst our country is representing Africa in the international panels
regarding global warming by our Prime Minister for no reason
should forest land be given out for agriculture purposes,” part of the
letter read.

Deforestation

Indeed, the President’s views fall in line with those of Prime Minister
Meles Zenawi who is quoted as saying during the Africa Bioenergy
Conference and Expo, two years ago, that “It is through the
improvement of agricultural productivity that we can protect our
forests (...),” Meles added.

But, despite the president’s plea, Isayas Kebede, agriculture
investment support directorate director of the agriculture ministry,
told local reporters, early last month, that the lease would have no
negative environmental impact but rather assist local development.
Local critics argue that cutting down trees spanning huge portions of
land will result in deforestation.

Many environmental experts have signaled that the consequences of
deforestation include droughts while warning that forests help to
generate rainfall in drought-prone areas, elsewhere. In this logic,
deforestation in Gambela Regional State might not affect that region
per se, but another.

During a meeting organised to gather petitions on the effect of
climate change in the Horn of Africa country ahead of the 2009
Copenhagen Climate Summit led by Mr. Terefa Derebew, it was
noted that an estimated number of 5.3 million Ethiopians adversely
affected by harsh drought conditions resided in the Oromia and
SNNPR regional states, and the remaining in the Somali, Amhara
and Tigray regional States.

Situation unchanged

A local newspaper reported, last month, that the land will be used
to grow tea and coffee which is as good as the forest environmental
contribution.

In spite of a continuous struggle by the petitioners to stop the land
lease, "the situation remains unchanged", sources from the ministry
of Agriculture told Afrik-News this week.

In a recent visit to India, Agriculture Minister Tefera announced the
preparation of an extra 3.6 million hectares of land and called on
Indian companies to invest in Ethiopia.

Ethiopia has leased 1.8 million hectares of land to foreign agriculture
companies; most of them are from India.

Courtesy