Alan Dixon

Wetland cultivation and hydrological management in eastern Africa: Matching community and hydrological needs through sustainable wetland use

Wetlands are critical natural resources in developing countries where they perform a range of environmental functions and provide numerous socio-economic benefits to local communities and a wider population. In recent years, however, many wetlands throughout eastern Africa have come under extreme pressure as government policies, socio-economic change and population pressure have stimulated a need for more agriculturally productive land. Although wetland drainage and cultivation can make a key contribution to food and livelihood security in the short term, in the long term there are concerns over the sustainability of this utilization and the maintenance of wetland benefits. This article draws upon recent research carried out in western Ethiopia, which addressed the sustainability of wetland agriculture in an area of increasing food insecurity and population pressure. It discusses the impacts of drainage and cultivation on wetland hydrology and draws attention to local wetland management strategies, particularly those characterized by multiple use of wetlands, where agriculture exists alongside other wetland uses. The article suggests that where multiple wetland uses exist, a range of benefits can be sustained with little evidence of environmental degradation. Ways of promoting and empowering such sustainable wetland management systems are discussed in the context of the wider need for water security throughout the region.

Local institutions for wetland management in Ethiopia: sustainability and state intervention

Locally developed institutions that include rules and regulations, common values and mechanisms of conflict resolution are increasingly regarded as adaptive solutions to resource management problems at the grass-roots level. Since they are rooted in community social capital rather than in external, top-down decision making, they are seen as being dynamic, flexible and responsive to societal and environmental change and, as such, they promote sustainability. Within this context, this chapter examines the case of local institutions for wetland management in western Ethiopia. It discusses how the structure and functioning of these institutions have evolved in response to a changing external environment, and the extent to which this has facilitated the sustainable use of wetlands. It is suggested that these local institutions do play a key role in regulating wetland use, yet they have, uncharacteristically, always relied on external intervention to maintain their local legitimacy. Now there are concerns that the institutional arrangements are breaking down due to a lack of support from local administrative structures and current political ideology. This has major implications for the sustainable use of wetland resources and food security throughout the region.

People-centred Wetland Management

In Wood, A.; Dixon, A.; McCartney, Matthew. (Eds.). Wetland management and sustainable livelihoods in Africa. Oxon, UK: Routledge - Earthscan

Creating local institutional arrangements for sustainable wetland socio-ecological systems: lessons from the ‘Striking a Balance’ project in Malawi

Wetland socio-ecological systems provide livelihood benefits for many poor people throughout the developing world, yet their sustainable development requires local utilisation strategies that balance both environmental and development outcomes. Community-based local institutional arrangements that mediate peoples’ relationships with their environment and facilitate adaptive co-management offer one means of achieving this, and increasingly many NGOs and development practitioners have sought to integrate local institutional capacity building into development projects. In the context of wider academic debates surrounding the long-term sustainability of externally facilitated local institutions, this article draws on the experiences of the three-year Striking a Balance (SAB) project in Malawi which sought to embed sustainable wetland management practices within community-based local institutional arrangements. Drawing on field data collected through participatory methods at three project sites some 5 years after the cessation of project activities, we examine the extent to which SAB’s local institutional capacity building has been successful, and from this draw some lessons for externally driven project interventions which seek win-win outcomes for people and the environment. With reference to Elinor Ostrom’s design principles for long-enduring common property resource institutions, we suggest that the observed declining effectiveness of SAB’s local institutions can be attributed to issues of stakeholder inclusiveness and representations; their sustainability was arguably compromised from their inception on account of them being nested within pre-existing, externally driven village ‘clubs’ whose membership and decision-making was not congruent with all the wetland stakeholders within the community.

Food Security, Politics and Perceptions of WildlifeDamage in Western Ethiopia

Farmers in Illubabor Zone, Ethiopia, lead a subsistence existence and hence any crop loss to wildlife is perceived to threaten food security. In the context of increasing farmer concerns about the level of crop damage caused by wild vertebrates, this study aimed to (1) determine the perceived impacts of a 2004 cull on wildlife and patterns of crop-raiding by wild vertebrates; (2) quantify current wildlife damage events in study farms by species responsible, time of damage, and location of farm affected; (3) identify features of the agricultural landscape that influence patterns of crop-raiding. Research involving participatory investigations with local farmers and field monitoring of wildlife damage events was undertaken over a 3-week period on eight farms spread across two study sites in central Illubabor. Farmers’ perceptions of the effectiveness of the 2004 cull were found to be spatially variable; baboon-attributed crop losses were perceived to have declined in some but not all areas, whilst crop damage attributed to other species increased beyond pre-cull levels. Wildlife monitoring data suggest significant spatial and temporal variation in crop losses attributed to individual species, although baboon damage appears to occur more frequently, relative to other species, in farms located at the forest edge. This study provides the first quantitative assessment of crop damage by primates within Illubabor and serves as an initial exploratory analysis upon which future studies can build.

The Indigenous Evaluation of Wetlands Research in Ethiopia.

The adoption of participatory approaches has become virtually de rigueur in rural development projects, if only to satisfy donor demands for evidence of participation. Often, however, PRA and its derivatives are used in an extractive fashion and do not benefit local people as intended. This Practical Note reports on a project in Ethiopia in which PRA was used. An evaluation conducted with the same communities after the research phase was concluded confirmed that certain aspects of PRA had been appreciated, in particular the opportunities for peer-group learning, the process had been more top-down than most would have liked. It concludes with some simple lessons for how to avoid the obvious pitfalls, and how to ensure that local people get the most out of participating in a development project.

Baro-Akobo River Basin Wetlands: Livelihoods and Sustainable Regional Land Management (Ethiopia)

The Baro-Akobo system from Ethiopia, along with a major tributary the Sobat from South Sudan, contributes 48 % of the flow of the White Nile where these river systems join downstream of Malakal. Within the Baro-Akobo system in Ethiopia there are wetlands at altitudes from 400 m amsl to over 2000 m, varying in size from 1 ha to more than 1000 ha. These wetlands provide a range of ecosystem services and play critical roles in the livelihoods of the local people. These communities have built up considerable local knowledge about these areas and have developed community management systems. These skills need to be developed and applied more rigorously to address the threats to wetlands to ensure sustainable use with catchment and wetlands managed together in a functional landscape approach.

The Nile Headwaters: Wetlands and Catchments in Highland Ethiopia

Headwater wetlands are critical elements in the hydrological system. They help moderate stream flow, recharge groundwater resources and create microclimates (Table 1). These functions are particularly important in tropical areas with seasonal rainfall as they help extend the availability of water.