Safeguarding Biodiversity Islands in Northern Ethiopia Amidst Political Change

Abstract

This chapter concerns the safeguarding of biodiversity islands established through community-based restoration in Northern Ethiopia, and centers particularly on the case study of a kebele (or village, also spelled q’ebele) called Abreha we Atsbeha. Severely degraded landscapes in the Tigray region of Northern Ethiopia have enjoyed extensive restoration efforts in recent decades, and these efforts have intensified further since Ethiopia joined the African Resilient Landscapes Initiative (ARLI) and became a member of the Bonn Challenge. The resultant restored areas serve as biodiversity islands in an otherwise highly degraded area. While praise abounds for the restoration successes and benefits to communities like Abreha we Atsbeha, there is scant research exploring how the restoration takes place, and insufficient attention has been paid to the capacity of these restoration efforts—and the biodiversity islands they enable—to survive in the midst of political change. This chapter therefore investigates the communal labor activities that enliven successful ecological restoration and relies on a political ecology framework to discuss governance and restoration in this context. Overall, the chapter demonstrates that restoration-based biodiversity islands in Abreha we Atsbeha are created and safeguarded through a robust single-party political system. This system at once mandates universal participation in restoration activities while limiting the participation of many community constituents in the planning of restoration activities. The author argues that this social-ecological system needs to be adapted to ensure that rural, restoration-based biodiversity islands in the region can continue to flourish alongside more pluralistic and democratic political norms and institutions.