B. Mezgebu
28 November 2007
opinion
Addis Abeba — Demonstrators in France in the 1968 uprising had this in their banner headlines: "It is forbidden to forbid" The message was probably a reaction to petty bureaucracies saying "no' to things habitually. And saying no can actually be habit forming.
The environment sector and its activist adherents across the globe are not necessarily bureaucratic in their outlook. But since they probably feel that if they let go and make easy compromises with businesses and governments, that inevitably would lead to the environment being shortchanged, they tend to assume a no-nonsense stance and say "no" once too often.
Let me illustrate what I mean by giving you a few examples from here.
Don't burn: An indigenous NGO in Addis has recently been advising against the practice of burning solid waste in Addis (mainly), and has been cautioning residents to refrain from this age old practice, ahead of the big bonfire day, that took place on the 22nd of the month of November. The main reason given by the NGO, not far fetched certainly, was that it contributes to global warming.
There is no arguing with the science part and the scientific logic. Where the argument falls short is in other aspects, one of which is the statistics. How much carbon does the yearly burning unleash and given that Ethiopia is hardly an industrial hub, is the country burning carbon at present more than it should?
The second shortcoming has to do with this: as more and more people move into cities and towns, in other words, as population numbers rise, more and more waste will continue to be generated. The garbage pile up that we see in the streets and alleys of Addis make it obvious that the mechanism put up by the Municipality to remove waste is far from adequate. So residents resort to what is surely a mechanism under their control: set the waste on fire once a year.
A good number of people in Addis perform this ritual; and I am not saying burning solid waste is the greenest of environmental undertakings. Besides, in the final analysis, residents of Addis Ababa as members of the world community, have in future to be guided by Kyoto protocol or what have you.
But as it is, before we have in place a sure and practical way of solid waste disposal in the city, we can't simply forbid burning. If we do, and all the citizens were to strictly follow the NGO's recommendation to bring the practice to an end as of this very minute, I would bet, communities would suffocate from what they throw away.
Cut no Christmas tree: Cupressus lustanica, is the tree of choice for a Christmas decoration tree; at least in the city of Addis. An exotic species, it exists in government plantations and in private homes. It is not a diffcult plant to grow and here in Addis, it does quite well in fact.
In spite of that, government and other institutions have from time to time, at this time of the year, hectored citizens not to cut trees for the holiday season for decorative purposes. One question: What use are trees for that you yourself have grown if you can't sell it or make use of in any way you like sustainably? Here too we see a similar syndrome to forbid.
Is there a different approach? In my opinion the alternative is to let people be free to harvest their trees in a commonsense way. People should be taught to plant replacements or even plant more, if possible. In other words, create incentives for people to grow trees.
Land closures: By now this approach to conservation is familiar to many of us. It the kind of conservation of vegetation, soil and wildlife with least cost and minimum technical supervision. The Ministry of Agriculture decades ago introduced this paradigm, hardly a rocket science, come to think of it, but very practical.
Just cordon off a hillside to protect from livestock grazing on them and from illegal cutting of vegetation for 3-4 years. Self regeneration is fast and certain. The result so far almost everywhere in the country was good given that the closed areas were the most degraded sites to begin with.
There is, however, a tendency to close the sites endlessly. To some petty officials, they represent more a museum than a community of living things. Farmers residing around these areas hardly feel involved. That is why perhaps their expansion has been met with all sorts of resistance. Another example perhaps of "no" as a conservation strategy that takes us nowhere.
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