Attitudes To Deforestation in Ethiopia
It is costly to halt deforestation. Coffee companies have discovered the niche market for forest coffee from Ethiopia and are willing to pay higher prices to the farmer cooperatives in coffee forest areas. Consumers are promised that buying the coffee will improve incomes of farmers and therefore farmers are motivated to manage their coffee forests sustainably. Will farmers act that way? Traditionally farmers have abandoned wild coffee collection when coffee prices were too low. Whether or not higher prices for forest coffee are an incentive either to over-harvest or harvest more sustainably, remains an open question. Currently there is no scientific evidence that higher prices for forest coffee are an incentive for sustainable harvest practices. In fact, even the knowledge about the amount of wild coffee that can be collected in a sustainable way is scarce.
Because of the complex nature of the problem of deforestation, the Ethiopian government alone is not able to prevent deforestation. By now we also know that markets alone are unable to prevent this either. Eventually local stakeholder participation will be required. Much of Ethiopia’s national budget is covered by international development aid. Not surprisingly international aid agencies should also play a prominent role in sustainable forest management. The government of Ethiopia has asked several international agencies, like the Japanese ICA, the German Technical Cooperation (GTZ) and FARM-Africa to get involved in Participatory Forest Management. Such projects aim at developing forest management plans and signing contracts between local communities and the government. Different areas of the remaining forests are divided among the foreign aid agencies, where they carry out “their” projects on behalf of the government. What is needed, however, are direct, competent, trustworthy relations between local resource users and the federal authorities: a functioning and effective forestry extension service.
Another problem is that the environmental issues in Ethiopia have no (or a very weak) lobby and the current restrictive socio-political context for public engagement has detrimental effects on environmental education, awareness, advocacy and the building of an engaged and empowered civil society – assets which are necessary to conserve and use Ethiopia’s forests in a sustainable way. The recent "School Children Talent Competition Award on Biodiversity Conservation", organized by the Ethiopian Coffee Forest Forum is an excellent example of what is needed.
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