Ethiopian Heritage Trust


Ethiopian Heritage Trust (UK)

A not-for-profit charity supporting the Ethiopian Heritage Trust in Addis Ababa

Entoto Natural Park

Restoring Nature

 

This is the main project of the Ethiopian Heritage Trust.

 

The Park is 13 square kilometres and lies immediately north of Addis Ababa.




Ethiopian Heritage Trust

The organization, Ethiopian Heritage Trust, is devoted to restoring Ethiopia's indigenous Nature and sincerely preserving the country's precious cultural heritage. With high priority, the Ethiopian Heritage Trust laid the ground for understanding the importance of an indigenous forest's effect on the country's natural health. The organization's work with planting native saplings illuminates the landscape's healing capacity with precision thanks to this native forest. The toxic eucalyptus tree imprints the importance of careful research regarding knowledge in natural science. Such a history of incompatible species gives an intense and evident example before any introduction to unique and vulnerable habitats.

πŸ“ž Call +251 Ethiopia 011-5-15-88-02 / 09-22-97-27-46




3.1.The Ethiopian Heritage Trust


ADDRESS
Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
Bole Road, Ras Mengesha Siyum House
Phone: - +251-11 515 8802

In the historical year: 1992, the Ethiopian Heritage Trust (EHT or the Trust) started as an Ethiopian voluntary organization and is non-political, non-religious and non-profiting in its constitution. Founded by private individuals wishing to make a personal contribution towards stopping the decay and the destruction of the country's historical buildings and natural environment, the organization has, from the beginning, been supported by the Administration of Region 14. Membership is open to all after paying an annual or lifetime fee.

Article 3 regarding the aim of the Ethiopia Heritage Trust claims: "The Trust is to act as a body of sites and buildings of historical and/or aesthetic interest and of lands of natural beauty to be preserved for present and future generations" (Statues of The Ethiopia Heritage Trust, pg 1)

a) The Governing Council

Ethiopian Heritage Trust (EHT) is ruled by a governing Council consisting of 14 councillors elected by the members of the EHT. Among its duties is to perform all acts necessary for the EHT, such as acquiring aesthetically and historically interesting sites and buildings and the land of natural beauty, repairing, restoring and conserving such sites, buildings and land to the highest standard, and improving awareness regarding issues of conservation and preservation in Ethiopia.

The Entoto-Natural-Park Project

At the northern edge of Addis Ababa, a mountain ridge rises to an altitude of more than 3 100 meters above sea level. On the mountain known as Entoto, a state-owned forest company planted huge areas of eucalyptus, which are now being cut down by the forest company itself and by fuel-wood collectors. The region faces big problems concerning erosion, over flooding and uncontrolled exploitation.


The progress of the Project

Acknowledgements


Between September 1993 and September 1994, decisions were taken on the criteria for the location of the natural park. Continuous discussions were held between members of the EHT and representatives of the government, and informal contacts were taken with different people who might have opinions about the project. The collection of seeds and production of seedlings was initiated in order to prepare for the beginning of replanting in 1995.

The forming of a planning structure around Entoto Natural Park in order to create and transform the 17 km area is a huge task. The difficulties in solving many fields of knowledge; therefore, the members have to use a cross-sectoral approach. Gradually, during many informal discussions, a way of dealing with a certain problem is found. 

b) The Park Committee

From the Governing Council, a number of committees have emerged. One of them is the Park Committee, which has the determination to create a natural park of high quality for the citizens of Addis Ababa on the slopes of Entoto Mountain. Most of the Park Committee members have full employment elsewhere, a fact that so far has steered the meetings of the Committee towards evening time. During our stay, the Park Committee had regular meetings every second week, often with an additional four hours-walk on Entoto on Sundays. At every meeting, often held in the home of one of the Park Committee members, a list of minutes is taken in order to clarify the duties to be carried out until the next meeting and to check up on the results since the previous meeting. Decisions can not be taken until the members of the Park Committee unanimously agreed upon them.

In the National Conservation
Strategy, it is expressed that:

  • Heritage significance indicates historical, aesthetic, social, scientific or other values for past, present and future generations,

  • Heritage is living and is not a museum of protected objectives but part of people's lives,

  • Heritage is a continuum of cultural expression from natural wilderness to urban areas,

  • Heritage conservation should be seen as part of and integrated with Ethiopia's generally social and economic development,

  • The national heritage should not be seen as the responsibility of the government alone, and so communities should play a leading role in assessing and nominating places or items of heritage significance and in conserving them,

  • A sustainable heritage conservation and management programme should seek to understand all the elements of the system, their interrelationships and the way in which each contributes to social and economic development. (Ibid, pg 97)

 (HΓ₯kan Blanck and Pia Englund, Entoto Natural Park 1995)

 

Ethiopian Heritage Trust (Background)

1.1    The Situation   (Date: 1995)

The Capital of Ethiopia, Addis Ababa, lacks public parks for its growing number of citizens. At an alarming rate, the peri-urban sites transform into towns. No national park demonstrates Ethiopian nature in the vicinity of the Capital, and the surrounding countryside contains only farmland or tree plantations. There is an urgent need for at least one significant area where the urban population can rest in natural, clean and unspoiled surroundings among greenery and fresh air.



The Eucalyptus Problem

  Ethiopian Heritage Trust (UK)  

  Environmental Restoration  

  Volunteering  

  Terracing  

  Check Dams  

  Water Reservoirs  

  Spring Water Ideas  

  Retaining Walls  

  Benefits of the Park's Work  




Ethiopia's Unique Highland Landscape and Climate

Regarding Ethiopia's unique climate in the seasons, with months of heavy downpours over the country's characteristic rugged landscape topography followed by months of blistering sunshine, difficulties naturally arise for the survival of planted saplings. The long prehistoric Nature's evolutionary optimized stability in sheer strength and water absorption found in the original native vegetation is thus often impossible to recreate with a simple planting of fragile young seedlings. Therefore, Ethiopia's neglected indigenous Nature demands knowledge and work before any sign of evident healing of the country's Nature and freshwater conservation. Consequently, it is often associated with incredible frustration to recreate healthy landscape biotopes by replanting native young plants on exposed eroded mountain slopes and devastated high plateaus. Instead, sporadically planted young plants will require tender care with irrigation and protection against grazing animals and shade from season months of midday's mercilessly blistering sunshine. This recreation of Nature's shielding functions needs, thus, the devoted work of restoration to regain the guardian effect from a lost indigenous forest with its endemic vegetation of shielding undergrowth.



The Environment, Culture and Prosperity
The Protection and Restoration

An Obligation with a Wonderful Solution

The stalk to the seed of indigenous Podocarpus falcatus (P. gracilior) is considerably more exposed in height at an early stage of its soil germination than the equivalent of the endemic Juniper tree seed. Since the tiny seedlings raise their seeds to the height of their brittle stems, an excellent and traditional solution arises - Rosa abyssinica, which can shield and defend with its sharp thorns the tender Podocarpus seedling in the absence of the original undergrowth, vegetation and biotope locally eradicated due to the tactical poisoning from the foreign eucalyptus tree.




Benefits from the Establishment of the Park

Without any doubt, a healthy relationship is essential for human health and real Nature. Indeed, deeply interconnected phenomena to human identity within the World, Nature reveal its overwhelming influence on human well-being. Since the natural environment regarding humans often appears as the real core of human health, it is particularly evident due to its impact on human health and prosperity. However, a development from antiquity of the insidious hierarchical governing of the past caused scares among many nations. Therefore, it appears to be the most important to healing the wrongdoings of the past and amending the devastating humiliation of degraded health, thus repairing and delivering the population's most critical need for safe stimulus in a beautiful daily life.


The Precarious and Fragile Restoration Of the Lost Nature

Scientific research, which includes much time and labour for environmental restoration, demands massive protection projects to offer the young plants the replacement for the lost biotope and its vital natural protective properties. Hence, restoring a lost biotope is complicated and requires much work to recreate a reliable substitute for the missing shielding armour of the primaeval forest. Therefore, due to the absence of the essential protective functions of mother trees and other plants, enormous efforts are required to recreate these guardian functions for the tender indigenous seedlings, which otherwise do not survive the very exposed ground. Thus, this environmental restoration process includes a complex rebuild of habitat and ecology that was previously prehistorically self-evident as a crucial basis for all higher life forms' survival.


The Healing Capacity of an Indigenous Forest


Benefits from the Establishment of the Park
A Legacy Of Natural Importance
The natural health and fertile beauty in this indigenous Juniper forest illuminate with precision the healing ability of a native forest and the severe Nature and habitat destruction that occurred at the introduction of the Eucalyptus tree. Due to these shortcomings in the water-preserving capacity of the Eucalyptus plantation, it cannot counterbalance the uneven distribution of rain. This eucalyptus poisoning of the ground creates a devastating water-rejecting fabric of the upper soil layer, all too often followed by torrential flooding in the down-slope areas. 



The Complications Of Indigenous Forest Restoration

Thus, it is impossible to recreate a stable and healthy nature by replanting a few native trees on a devastated plateau; instead, these sporadically planted young plants on the table will require tender care with irrigation and protection against grazing animals and shade from the blistering seasonal sun. Furthermore, on the slopes, these young plants most often need some temporary stabilizer of the ground and protection in something that mimics the wind and sun-protective effect of many mother trees. In addition, sporadically placed young plants can only offer a very rudimentary and weak protective network against erosion; instead, there is the obvious risk that these young plants will, in all probability, soon perish in the struggle against the great forces of Nature.


The Science of Indigenous Ancient Trees

Choosing the Right Mother Tree for Seed

The distant location but within the same country, developed fauna and flora have undergone an extremely long evolutionary optimization to best adapt to the unique condition of its geological and surrounding genetic characteristics. The unique habitat in a particular region within a country imprinted the native indigenous to receive their distinctive property of plant and wildlife depending on the remoteness unique climate. 



The Image: Podocarpus Falcatus (P. Gracilior)
The Importance of Seed's Evolutionary Heritage
Hence, this country's topographical isolated locations inherit different genetic requirements due to local and unique climate factors within a landscape. Therefore, regarding the country's mountainside or within its secluded gorge, the endemic tree created the specificity of their genetic heritage and the soil's uniqueness. Thus, the trees' evolutionary connection to a country's landscape makes a precious legacy for their trees' seeds in which they inherit well-adapted genetic characteristics to the location's biological uniqueness. 

Assessing Seeds Based on the Climate Zones of the Country
Hence, the genetic legacy's impact in Ethiopia's various climates and altitudes creates trees that, although belonging to the same species, developed a difference in genetic heritage. Due to this genetic climate adaptation within different regions of a country, the trees obtain their ability to deal with these different climate zones. Thus, the mistake of using the seed from a tree with its genetic origin from a moist and shady gorge as seedlings on a dry southern slope undermines these trees' ability to survive and other organisms, including humans.


The Precarious and Fragile Restoration Of the Lost Nature

 Science, much time and labour are needed for environmental restoration; this demands massive protection projects to offer the young plants the replacement for the lost biotope and its vital natural protective properties. Hence, restoring a lost biotope is very complicated and requires much work to recreate a reliable substitute for the lost shielding armour of the primaeval forest. Therefore, due to the absence of the essential protective functions of mother trees and other plants, enormous efforts are required to recreate these guardian functions for the tender indigenous seedlings, which otherwise do not survive the very exposed ground. Thus, this process of environmental restoration includes what was previously prehistorically self-evident as a crucial basis for the survival of all higher life forms.




𝑨𝒓𝒕 𝑺𝒉𝒐𝒑: 𝑳𝒂𝒏𝒅𝒔𝒄𝒂𝒑𝒆 & π‘Ύπ’Šπ’π’…π’π’Šπ’‡π’†


π‘ͺ𝑢𝑡𝑫𝑰𝑻𝑰𝑢𝑡𝑺 𝑢𝑭 𝑺𝑨𝑳𝑬

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π‘Ύπ’Šπ’π’…π’π’Šπ’‡π’†:
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Please note that the artwork on the right is not included in this sale.

Email: info@ethiopianheritagetrustuk.org
Phone: 0300 365 1417.



Ethiopian Heritage Trust

The goal is to cover the Park with indigenous trees and bring back the native flowers and shrubs, birds and mammals which used to abound in the area.

​

Over 600,000 indigenous trees have been planted.

​

To control water flow and prevent erosion 200 kilometres of terracing and 15 kilometres of check dams have been built.

​

As a result, 13 springs have developed.

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115 species of bird have been recorded, including 5 of Ethiopia’s endemic species.

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With the growing maturity of the trees native shrubs and herbaceous plants can be seen, such as bulleia polystachya, bidens pachyloma, and geranium arabicum.

​

The number of indigenous tree seedlings planted in the Park over the last 3 years has been:

2018    8,000

2019  25,000

2020    9,400
(Covid 19 caused considerable problems for the tree planting operation in 2020.)

This momentum has to be maintained to complete the long-term vision of a green haven; at least a further 10 years of effort will be required.


Website:  Contact Us






π‘¬π’•π’‰π’Šπ’π’‘π’Šπ’‚π’ π‘―π’†π’“π’Šπ’•π’‚π’ˆπ’† 𝑻𝒓𝒖𝒔𝒕 (𝑼𝑲)

π‘‡β„Žπ‘’ π‘‘π‘œπ‘‘π‘Žπ‘™ π‘Žπ‘šπ‘œπ‘’π‘›π‘‘ π‘¦π‘œπ‘’ π‘‘π‘œπ‘›π‘Žπ‘‘π‘’ 𝑀𝑖𝑙𝑙 𝑏𝑒 𝑒𝑠𝑒𝑑 𝑖𝑛 πΈπ‘‘β„Žπ‘–π‘œπ‘π‘–π‘Ž.
π‘‡β„Žπ‘’ π‘‡π‘Ÿπ‘’π‘ π‘‘ 𝑖𝑠 π‘Ÿπ‘’π‘”π‘–π‘ π‘‘π‘’π‘Ÿπ‘’π‘‘ π‘€π‘–π‘‘β„Ž π»π‘’π‘Ÿ π‘€π‘Žπ‘—π‘’π‘ π‘‘π‘¦’𝑠 𝑅𝑒𝑣𝑒𝑛𝑒𝑒 π‘Žπ‘›π‘‘ πΆπ‘’π‘ π‘‘π‘œπ‘šπ‘  π‘“π‘œπ‘Ÿ 𝐺𝑖𝑓𝑑 𝐴𝑖𝑑.

Ethiopian Heritage Trust (UK)

_______________________________________________________________________


Where do you plan to make your mark?


Entoto Natural Park (Nursery)
The Ethiopian Heritage Trustee Association is working to plant more than 50,000 indigenous saplings in Entoto Natural Park and Zego Kebele Association in Ankober District to cover exposed areas.
Organizations: Associations: Educational institutions: All those who love nature, together with our association, let's build a country with suitable air by planting saplings. Let's plant indigenous saplings together.

As we believe, we are ready and waiting for you this year. The Ethiopian Heritage Trustee Association has planted native saplings in place of Eucalyptus trees with partner organizations and members in the Entoto Natural Park. He tells you that this year, come and plant saplings together to protect the environment. For more information:

πŸ“ž Call +251 Ethiopia  

011-5-15-88-02/ 09-22-97-27-46






π‘Šπ‘Žπ‘‘π‘’π‘Ÿ πΆπ‘Ÿπ‘’π‘Žπ‘‘π‘–π‘œπ‘› π‘€π‘–π‘‘β„Ž πΊπ‘Ÿπ‘Žπ‘›π‘‘ π΅π‘’π‘Žπ‘’π‘‘π‘¦

Within the historical records appear several practical and aesthetical possibilities for restoration. These options for aesthetical restorations include water management, ground stability, and the most attractively pleasurable recreation paths. Another way of describing these methods for natural conservation is the effectiveness of the irrigation method when combined with very gentle and beautiful hiking trails above dizzying precipices. Through these micro canals' associated need for strength and reliability, this need for reinforced waterways coincides with the suitability of dramatically beautiful and safe hiking trails where the steep slopes above or beneath these paths deliver an extraordinary beauty over grand views of often impossible precipitous.










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