The Eucalyptus Problem
The Eucalyptus Problem
Our heartfelt condolences to everyone affected by the sudden landslide in Gofa, Southern Ethiopia, and our thoughts are with those who have lost their lives and their loved ones. We commend the ongoing rescue efforts to support families in grief and to re-establish society on a familiar and emotionally stable foundation.
The Background to the Eucalyptus Tree in Ethiopia
The introduction of the new Australian Eucalyptus species was very successful in Ethiopia, as its rapid height growth produced straight timber that surpassed that of indigenous trees. However, the initial optimistic results from eucalyptus plantings in the Ethiopian landscape soon proved to be a hasty and imprudent misconception, as this Australian tree's poisoning of the Ethiopian environment not only harmed the native ecology but also dramatically reduced the country's freshwater resources. Despite the apparent severe ecological damage in the Ethiopian landscape, the Australian Eucalyptus on Entoto remained the planted species during the past century. Despite the Australian Eucalyptus tree being an integral part of modern Ethiopian history, it is not native to Ethiopian flora. Although the earlier Eucalyptus plantations still cover the bulk of the Park area, some of the first introduced foreign trees date to this first phase of artificial reforestation.
Biodiversity In Peril Distress
Foreignly planted trees from remote geographic origins often struggle to adjust to their new environment because they lack the evolutionary background suited to the receiving site's unique ecology. The Eucalyptus apparently grows without trouble, largely due to its resilience to drought, but also to a significant enhancement in self-sustained success through an aggressive defence system of tactical toxicity. However, well-suited to avoid an environmental disaster, the eucalyptus tree is not capable of reproducing sexually in Ethiopian soil, since Australian eucalyptus seeds still do not germinate in Ethiopian soil. Therefore, the standard procedure of introduction is the planting of seedlings.
The Importance of Domestic Trees
Reinforcement of Native Roots Against Erosion
The composite image series above invites a more
comprehensive study with explanatory images
of the water's flow and ground infiltration.
The Torrential Rains and Erosion
Erosion: The soil-holding capacity of Eucalyptus is very moderate compared with the original Ethiopian ground cover and trees that initially covered the slopes of Entoto. Because there is no ground cover in the foreign-implanted Eucalyptus forest, the only thing to hold the soil is the sporadic web of roots of the trees. This lack of soil stabilizing undergrowth causes severe erosion, which is easily observed in the water running through Addis in connection with the rainy seasons. During every rain period, torrential runoff erodes valuable nutrients while the layer of fertile soil becomes progressively thinner. Without due care and preservation within a few years, no fertile ground will remain for new vegetation, and the erosion will be irreversible.
Flooding: On Entoto, every leaf and branch that has fallen to the ground is collected by people, whereas in a natural forest with endemic vegetation, organic material from leaves, wood, roots, etc., is left to be decomposed in the soil. The natural composting process from endemic vegetation improves soil structure, leading to a higher infiltration rate and a much better water-storage capacity, and, of course, provides fragile saplings with a primary ground for growth. The picture on the right simplifies the connection between land and water, which can be seen by the vertical connection in the study of the infiltrating movements of the water in pictures (5 ) and (7).
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| The composite image series above invites a more comprehensive study with explanatory images of the water's flow and ground infiltration. The Torrential Rains and Erosion |
Erosion: The soil-holding capacity of Eucalyptus is very moderate compared with the original Ethiopian ground cover and trees that initially covered the slopes of Entoto. Because there is no ground cover in the foreign-implanted Eucalyptus forest, the only thing to hold the soil is the sporadic web of roots of the trees. This lack of soil stabilizing undergrowth causes severe erosion, which is easily observed in the water running through Addis in connection with the rainy seasons. During every rain period, torrential runoff erodes valuable nutrients while the layer of fertile soil becomes progressively thinner. Without due care and preservation within a few years, no fertile ground will remain for new vegetation, and the erosion will be irreversible.
Flooding: On Entoto, every leaf and branch that has fallen to the ground is collected by people, whereas in a natural forest with endemic vegetation, organic material from leaves, wood, roots, etc., is left to be decomposed in the soil. The natural composting process from endemic vegetation improves soil structure, leading to a higher infiltration rate and a much better water-storage capacity, and, of course, provides fragile saplings with a primary ground for growth. The picture on the right simplifies the connection between land and water, which can be seen by the vertical connection in the study of the infiltrating movements of the water in pictures (5 ) and (7).
An Implanted Foreign Tree's Toxicity Causing
Desertification and Famine
Ethiopian Nature's endemic trees and native undergrowth, which constitute the ground's reinforcing shield of anchoring armouring deep and vast networks, often do not survive the perpetual onslaught of foreign toxic substances and overexploitation, which causes an unavoidable impoverishment of the landscape. Hence, the lack of native vegetation leads to uncontrollable erosion and flash floods that forcefully ground-chisel the landscape, stripping it of its precious nourishment. Thus, this poisoning causes the loss of endemic habitats for Ethiopia's wildlife and destroys previously lush pastures, leaving once-productive meadows unusable for livestock, thereby gravely impoverishing farmers' daily lives and, regrettably, even the conditions for the survival of farmers and their families. The following impact of the severe loss of water resources by torrential flash floods, rejections of valuable deluges by short-lived, sudden and violent, bursting water masses is also threatening the country's economy and, ultimately, even the real threat to the population's health and life quality, thus affecting the long-term survival of the country's inhabitants.
Biodiversity: An Origin of Health and Prosperity
Countries' Forgotten Cradle Of Wealth & Beauty
A Heritage from Times Of Natural Wealth
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| The Native Podocarpus & Rosa abyssinica | Biodiversity |
The reason understanding diversity in biodiversity can seem difficult is that a country's landscape and climate shape each organism's prevailing evolutionary adaptations. Hence, for aeons, endemic plants create or align with habitats that have limitations and advantages, which are often not suitable as hosts for a country's remote species, where incompatibilities often endure due to origins in remote geography. In reality, each habitat's landscape, with its unique climate, topography, and geographic location, is often home to endemic species from the country's evolutionary past. This original Nature often risks enduring biodiversity sensitivities, with direct limitations and vulnerabilities to external, incompatible biological interference, especially against biological life forms that are much more distant in evolutionary terms, of continental remoteness spanning extended distances and prehistoric aeons.
The Eucalyptus Trees' Toxicity Reform
The Ground to a Water-Wasting Surface
Hence, the toxic effects of this Australian and foreign tree waste on water cause otherwise precious downpours to be converted into uncontrollable, rapid flash floods from the slopes, thereby creating destructive soil-milling forces. This dangerous environmental erosive phenomenon is visually evident on the landscape's slopes, with artificial eucalyptus plantings and furrowed, eroded ground covered by a brittle clay crust. Hence, regrettably, the loss of Nature's armoured shield of native undergrowth is apparent on the Highlands' mountainous slopes. The poisoning of the surroundings by this foreign Eucalyptus tree results in barren, brittle ground, scarred and depleted of native undergrowth, with Eucalyptus as the only tree species. Hence, this aggressive and treacherous tactical poisoning from the foreign Eucalyptus tree mercilessly eradicates the native remaining protective endemic plants, consequently exterminating Ethiopia's wildlife's survival base.
Juniper Forest's Water Preserving versus
The Eucalyptus tree's elimination of the groundwater
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| It's still spoken among the residents of Entoto about when the water level is a reasonable time after the rainy seasons, still stood one metre higher in Entoto's streams and pools. Environment, Culture and Prosperity |
A chemical component with an intricate competition-oriented toxic defence system in the leaves and roots of Eucalyptus trees prevents the growth of other trees and herbs. This chemical component leads to a monoculture of Eucalyptus as the only tree species, and eventually to no ground cover. This chemical component causes severe erosion, which is easily observed in the water running through Addis and is connected with the rainy seasons. The invasive Eucalyptus tree's toxin is poisoning the remaining native plants, reinforcing plant cover, thereby causing significant loss of valuable water when torrential, short-lived flash floods suddenly speed up along the slopes in soil-milling violence.
The Environmental Danger of the Eucalyptus Tree
Due to these shortcomings in the eucalyptus plantation's water-retention capacity, it cannot offset seasonal unevenness in rainfall distribution. The result is often torrential flooding in the down-slope areas, in this case, the northern district of Addis Ababa. In August 1994, this flooding created a fatal danger because it was overwhelming and sudden. The Australian Eucalyptus Trees' Hostility
Against the Ethiopian Nature, Water and Environment
Thus, the foreign Eucalyptus tree in Ethiopia negatively affects Nature's and citizens' water resources. Instead of protecting the landscape, this alien tree rejects the precious deluges, thereby building up to dangerous torrential flooding. Areas that were periodically wet and had flora adjusted to such conditions were drained by planting Eucalyptus. Because the biodiversity of an Eucalyptus plantation is extremely low, it is biologically incompatible with Ethiopian flora and indigenous vegetation, thus resulting in poor wildlife in the planted area. These shortcomings in the Eucalyptus forest are not due to the Australian tree itself but to its introduction as a foreign species and its incompatibility with native Ethiopian plants. This incompatibility persists because Eucalyptus trees lack the capacity to form symbiotic relationships with Ethiopia's endemic microorganisms required by specialised wildlife, insects, and birds. Therefore, replacing Ethiopia's native trees with the Australian eucalyptus tree depleted this unique synergy of plants and microorganisms across vast areas, severely damaging the natural habitat of the country's highland landscape and impairing its vital processes for generating nutrients and water resources.
The Foreign Eucalyptus Trees' Relentless
Ground Deterioration of the Landscape
The barren, eroded ground surrounding the Eucalyptus tree appears to be a very different landscape compared to the vital multitude within the endemic lushness of the native Juniperus procera forest. However, the historical malefactor against the original Nature severely weakened the original soils in their essential function to lead and assist the rainwater to the natural underground aquifers; as obvious evidence of this environmental phenomenon in Ethiopia's dramatic landscape, the implanted Eucalyptus trees with their surrounding ground of typical barren clay characteristic where the protruding Eucalyptus roots are evident in the eroded sloping terrain. Hence, in the landscape, the Eucalyptus tree's roots often appear separated from the terrain and the surrounding ground, revealing its incompatibility with the evolutionary background of Ethiopian ecology. Therefore, the surrounding eroded base of the Australian eucalyptus tree appears, with its bare and exposed roots, as sporadic upward-stemming tubers, but with a limited number of periodic, minor radial roots.
Ethiopia's Historical Nature and the Country's
Devotion to Environmental Insight
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| This image forms the basis for understanding Nature's water-bearing body. The water is kept here, in the totality of this image, where both vegetation, soil and rock make up this vital water-bearing body to create this highly valuable water-harbouring landscape. Study of the water's complexity |
Ethiopia's Natural Water Production
The history of Ethiopia's endemic forests and the misdeeds against its original environment and Nature severely wounded the prehistoric ecological and geological heritage. Hence, the reproduction of soil and water becomes threatened by interrupting and removing the natural and critical processes like the original soil creation derived from the endemic trees and their decomposing leaves and twigs. This genetically optimized process of the indigenous trees' leaves and twigs of the Ethiopian forest had the vital ability to hinder the erosive torrents' initiation. Hence, the soil's structure from historical times still had its capacity to absorb deluges in this mountainous highland landscape.
The Natural Water Bodies Of the Highland
Hence, the formation of a water-rejecting clay crust severely reduced the remaining soil's ability to retain moisture, thereby reducing the delivery of supplied hydrogeologic water to natural aquifers and, of course, reducing future opportunities for citizens to obtain clean household water. Hence, Ethiopia's groundwater loss stems from the reduced size of the water-harbouring bodies within the Highlands, due to a reduction in the overall organic structure and sediment in the soil layer. Therefore, the loss of the Highlands' natural water bodies further hinders the reintroduction of indigenous species.The Loss of Natur's Armoured & Guardian Shield
This immense, destructive environmental phenomenon, driven by a foreign and incompatible tree species, is associated with the loss of Ethiopian native vegetation in the past and underscores the importance of an endemic foundation for lush, soil-shielding undergrowth. Hence, scientific evidence appears since the indigenous Ethiopian trees characterize the historical landscape in dense covering and shielding vegetation. These native trees' diverse and widespread network of soil-reinforcing roots thus provides a firm ground for a dense network of native vegetation. Hence, Ethiopia's ancient and evolutionarily optimized Nature confirmed its ability to absorb water into the ground and, most importantly, to purify and deliver these deluges into natural underground reservoirs (aquifers). Thus, in the past, Ethiopia's Nature and landscape's hydrogeology harmoniously harboured water masses in underground aquifers, transforming the otherwise destructive forces of torrential deluges into precious groundwater.
Ethiopia's Highland: A Magnificent Water Contributor
A Noble Gift: Historical Countries and Civilizations
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| Historically, these large quantities of torrential precipitations were accumulated for a long time within the borders of Ethiopia. At the same time in the past, the water's tremendous power was subdued in its sudden and erosive flashfloods, thus preventing destructive soil milling. |
However, this Ethiopian primary source of the Nile River is only one of several Ethiopian rivers that contribute to the Nile's total water. Consequently, the total amount of water delivered from the Ethiopian Highland to the Nile is above the Blue Nile. The Blue Nile from Ethiopia is here, with 70-80% of the Nile's water during the rainy seasons, and is, without comparison, the dominant source of the Nile, which should be emphazised as a crucial historical reality. Thus, Egypt, the ancient high culture, usually regarded as the cultural cradle for the ancient Greek and European civilizations, has its historical culture thanks to the watershed from the Ethiopian Highlands.
A Great Legacy of Historical Waterways
Despite the usual and faulty description of how the lands south of Ethiopia are the source of the Nile, this is only correct in adventure literature and the early travellers' romantic stories of heroic adventures and explorers' discoveries through the ascent of the breathtakingly beautiful cloud-covered Rwenzori mountains and glaciers in the range through the countries of Uganda and Congo. However, it is understandable that these daring adventurers of the past centuries sought knowledge of unknown lands and, therefore, increasingly lost their route from the actual waters of the Nile masses when it did not offer the requisite drama.
The Healing Capacity Of the Native Forest
The Park's Undergrowth with Native Trees
The natural health and fertile beauty in this Indigenous Juniper forest (16), including (40), and the indigenous Podocarpus trees (B) illuminate, with precision, the healing ability of a native forest. The natural health of this landscape, with native trees, provides insight and a natural stimulus to prevent and heal the severe erosion and habitat loss that occurred with the introduction of the Eucalyptus tree. The importance of careful research on natural science knowledge is presented as an insightful and evident example before any foreign species is considered for introduction into an unfamiliar and vulnerable habitat. It can be stimulating to combine a wonderful mountain hike with a field study of the unique green hue, lush undergrowth, and the resulting effect on the ground stability beneath the native trees.
The Natural Science of the Endemic Species and
The Beauty of Ethiopia's Highland
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| Bees' Cliff 14 assists by the vast map loop surrounding points 36 and 41-42 The Wild Forest of the Ancient |
The natural health and fertile beauty in this Indigenous Juniper forest (16) towards (40) illuminates with precision the healing capacity of a native forest, but regrettably, so does the severe Nature and habitat destruction that occurred at the introduction of the Eucalyptus tree. The importance of careful research on natural science knowledge is clearly illustrated by the example of introducing any foreign species into an unfamiliar and vulnerable habitat.
The Juniper Forest of the Ancient
The deeper Juniper forest appears to emerge from the mist of history, offering the opportunity with a concealed, more than 50-year-old, wild and original Juniperus procera woodland. This primaeval forest (40) lies east of point (16), still hidden behind an elevated ridge on the eastern slope. This native Juniper forest provides a unique insight into how Nature emerged before the introduction of Eucalyptus from Australia over 100 years ago.
The Eucalyptus Plantation in Ethiopia
Land Use: The bulk of the area is used as a plantation. Eucalyptus has been grown for a long time, mainly for construction wood. Lately, the illegal cutting of trees has accelerated, with large amounts of timber being brought out. Fallen branches for fuelwood are collected by people living in the area and outsiders. Some females actually sweep the ground for some single twigs. The regular land use on the Park's soil would be cattle raising and mixed farming (Foth 1984), which can still be seen. One part in the upper eastern and another in the western is used for crops and cattle breeding.
The Park's Nature with an Inviting Display to
The Sensitive Balance of Nature and Inhabitants
The remaining highland meadows, surrounded by indigenous trees, still provide nourishment for livestock that are otherwise rarely seen in eucalyptus forests due to the drastic reduction in edible grass and other vegetation beneath eucalyptus trees. Hence, some of these cultivated fields with Indigenous Nature remain, where the Eucalyptus tree has not yet ruined the ground vegetation by its foreign and tactical toxicity; see map loops (B) and (14), points (39), (41-42). These preserved areas with remaining indigenous Ethiopian trees include open grass fields; see map points (16), (B), (39), and (41) above point (16). With a park-like appearance, the Indigenous Juniper trees still prevail here in fascinating, beautiful places of lush landscape, where livestock have green, fertile meadows for grazing, thanks to the trees' erosion resistance and their fertility impact on the landscape. There are fenced pastures for the animals, but shepherds usually guard the livestock within the Park area, in close contact with the existing 60 households. Today, visitors come to Entoto for recreation, as it is the only forest-like area in the city's vicinity and offers beautiful mountain views.
The Australian Eucalyptus Tree and Its Ancient Legacy
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| Benefits from the Establishment of the Park |
- 1. It seems very strange that a tree species can be hostile and directly toxic to its surrounding Nature to the extent that it eliminates the soil layer that forms its basis and thus undermines the conditions for its future as a species. The scientific deduction that follows identifies a foreign intruder with an incompatible genetic legacy and hostile traits.
Videos: Soil Erosion Demo
- 2. The reason for these strange, hostile contradictions of this Australian tree's negative impacts on the Ethiopian environment is its scientific background in this Australian Eucalyptus tree's autonomous and insidiously aggressive survival strategy. The environmental issue in Ethiopia concerns the artificial relocation of the Eucalyptus tree as a poisonous intruder in the Ethiopian highlands. Furthermore, the description of this matter derives from the Eucalyptus tree's original continental remoteness in Australia, in terms of its geological and genetic past.
- 3. The distant continent of Australia's developed fauna and flora has undergone an extremely long evolutionary optimization to best adapt to the unique conditions of its geological and surrounding genetic characteristics. The Australian uniquely native indigenous habitat derives its distinctive plant and wildlife characteristics from this remoteness. Hence, due to its isolated location by oceans and aeons, the Eucalyptus tree created the specificity of its soil in seclusion and in connection with its ecological uniqueness. However, the impact of the Eucalyptus tree's foreign genetic legacy on Ethiopia undermines the country's endemic vegetation and the existence of other organisms.
- 4. Australia's unique flora and fauna have developed a distinctive character to become more or less toxic to its environment through separate seclusion from other continents. However, and very important in this context, Australia's organisms have, in their defence systems, developed an equally strong resistance to these multifarious toxicities, thus equipping them for evolutionary competition on their continent. Furthermore, this toxicity depends on direct, genetically controlled survival strategies to avoid, for example, overgrazing or large insect infestations, and even serves as a tool in competition among tree species on the ground.
- 5. The Australian continent and its Eucalyptus tree appear in displaced contradictions due to the continental distances of ocean magnitude to other continents. Thus, in Australia, it has been possible for animal and plant species to develop evolutionary characteristics that are not directly genetically related to those of other continents. A long time appears here in segregated genetic enhancement for Australia's distinct evolution of its organisms' optimization to elaborate the required mutation and genetic enhancement defence mechanisms against plant toxicity. This prehistoric evolution in the genetic legacy of the very remote past in the Australian surrounding fauna and flora is unique but still largely beyond human knowledge, and for future research within Nature's ancestral vault. This genetic material is something to be carefully, scientifically protected, and seriously investigated, as it may include crucial components for the future development of medicine or other vital research.
- 6. Thus, developing this tree's toxic substances has given the Eucalyptus tree increased survivability in an often demanding environment. The Eucalyptus tree's toxicity is controlled by its DNA, protecting it from overgrazing animals and parasitic or infectious organisms. However, due to its tactical toxicity, the Eucalyptus tree also improved its capacity to struggle for water and nutrients with other tree species. Contact with the Eucalyptus tree's toxicity caused Australia's biotope to evolve over aeons of increased resistance to its poison. With an evolutionarily tempered competition stemming from an often fierce struggle for nutrition and water resources, Australian vegetation has inherited unique genetic defences and sufficient toxic protective defences against various herbivores and other natural threats to its survival.
- 7. Hence, the geographical and aeons of the distance between Australia and other continents are large enough to create a different and incompatible DNA. Therefore, Australian eucalyptus trees are optimised for the Australian continent, where they originated, but are potentially directly harmful to habitats on other continents due to their early genetic divergence. With its enhanced DNA and tactical toxic defence system, this Australian tree will doubtless cause incompatibilities for different continents' biotopes of Earth's organisms.
- 8. Therefore, the Eucalyptus tree is treacherous in its silent strategy, working mechanisms from a foreign origin with an autonomous, hostile DNA against other countries' unprepared organisms. Due to biological differences across distant continents' biotopes, endemically restricted defence mechanisms elsewhere create vulnerabilities to Eucalyptus toxicity. Thus, this considerable distance between Australia and other continents often leads to markedly different ecologies, exposing the essential lack of sophisticated defence or resistance in the genetic constitutions of native organisms elsewhere.
- 9. Introducing this Australian tree into Ethiopia over a hundred years ago inflicted these contradictions and problems caused by incompatible evolutionary origins. This historical misdeed highlights the importance of more advanced international knowledge of the natural sciences to understand the dangers posed by the introduction of exotic plants and animals. Indeed, for a long time, only rudimentary international knowledge prevailed regarding the necessary laboratory examinations of plant and animal toxicity, and the need for rigorous inspections in epidemic-secured vaults sealed by government-supervised laboratories before allowing any international dissemination.
- 10. This continental export of species is a susceptible subject that can dramatically affect several countries and ethnic groups. The diplomatic and biological sensitivity of the foreign substances is certainly crucial and concerns any previously received environment of foreign organisms. Hence, here are obvious and intimately associated with the concerned countries' economies and far-reaching health conditions. It has long been known in science and biology that substances in the human environment have influenced the development of the present human heritage and its genome. This knowledge of the connection between the human genome and its effects in a specific biological environment directly concerns the current spread of humans into areas that lacked the prehistorical opportunity to influence the international groups' human genome.
- 11. This incompatibility due to the impact between the human genome and the substances of clearly foreign origin is very relevant for today's people. The contradictions in the relationship between the human genome and the new environments derive their source and explanation from increasingly international migration. These problems with the incompatible human genetic legacy may arise when people migrate to and live in areas where they have not previously lived, arriving as newly established ethnic groups. Similar difficulties arise with the export of significant biological products from distant continents to sites that have already provided humans with an adapted genome for their unique biotope over a long evolutionary time.
- 12. Concerning these human civilisations of today, with their prehistoric evolved indigenous populations, a careful biological evaluation of the possibility of mitigating adverse effects from non-human-compatible imports appears advisable. These safeguards may be offered by adding refined food to the diet that counteracts the increased sensitivity to foreign substances. In addition, a common and practical solution to neutralize foreign substances appears with treatment for the recently established population, which includes certain minerals or natural vitamin supplements that may be suitable for a shorter initial period. In the case of side effects, modern science, with well-balanced control, should provide the rationale for producing the necessary substances to counteract the debilitating effects of foreign plant-based substances, thereby advancing scientific and medical knowledge. Thus, considering the impact of Eucalyptus trees on other countries' indigenous vegetation may raise doubts and require scientific evaluation of these long-term effects on human health. Therefore, a potential threat to the exposed population is also providing this culture with the motivation for scientific advancement and increasing the possibility of enriching this culture with a stronger and more prosperous civilization.
Indigenous species
An area in the southeast contains junipers, but these remaining indigenous trees face a significant threat due to fuelwood collectors. On the steep hillsides and in the gorges and gullies in the lower part, there still remain trees of indigenous species like Juniperus procera, Podocarpus gracilior, Dovyalis abyssinica, Olea europea var, Africana, and Ficus sp. |
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Some solitary indigenous trees stand in open areas, e.g. Hagenia abyssinica and Hypericum sp. Beautiful meadows in the upper eastern part have a high diversity of herbs, and several species can also be found along the brooks. (HΓ₯kan Blanck and Pia Englund, Entoto Natural Park 1995). |
The Eucalyptus Problem
To counteract the toxic effects of the Australian Eucalyptus tree on the landscape from the previous century's devastating erosion, the required natural shield of indigenous Ethiopian tree plantations is being established today as a top priority. Despite this arduous work on the native tree plantation, Eucalyptus globulus still prevails as the dominant vegetation on Entoto Mountain and elsewhere around Addis Ababa. This Eucalyptus tree is of Australian origin, brought to Ethiopia over 100 years ago, an accidental export when international knowledge in the natural sciences was still very rudimentary. Then, the worldwide need for fuel caused deforestation in Ethiopia, with most areas around the Capital affected by the lack of wood for construction and energy.
To counteract the toxic effects of the Australian Eucalyptus tree on the landscape from the previous century's devastating erosion, the required natural shield of indigenous Ethiopian tree plantations is being established today as a top priority. Despite this arduous work on the native tree plantation, Eucalyptus globulus still prevails as the dominant vegetation on Entoto Mountain and elsewhere around Addis Ababa. This Eucalyptus tree is of Australian origin, brought to Ethiopia over 100 years ago, an accidental export when international knowledge in the natural sciences was still very rudimentary. Then, the worldwide need for fuel caused deforestation in Ethiopia, with most areas around the Capital affected by the lack of wood for construction and energy.
Ethiopia's Historical Landscape and
The Eucalyptus Trees' Introduction
These introduced foreign and young Eucalyptus trees soon dominated the Capital's surrounding landscape, efficiently displacing the remaining indigenous trees and vegetation. The Eucalyptus tree is a fast-growing species, outgrowing other native trees and suppressing them. At the same time, a chemical component in the leaves and roots of these Eucalyptus trees prevents the growth of other herbs. Due to this unfortunate side-effect of the foreign Eucalyptus tree's toxification of the surroundings, the ground appears fragile and brittle, with a monoculture of the alien Eucalyptus as the only tree species. Hence, a foreign tree's toxin eradicates the native remaining protective ground cover, thereby significantly causing the loss of valuable water through torrential freshwater runoff during short-lived, sudden, bursting flash floods of soil-milling erosion.
Ethiopia's Natural History
With Geology & Evolution.
The Australian Eucalyptus requires some water for its secondary survival strategy, but rejects most of Ethiopia's precious water in fast-flowing torrents. This water rejection reflects the Australian tree's character as a foreign organism in the Ethiopian Highlands, within a completely incompatible microbial soil and type of Nature. The Eucalyptus tree's damaging effects on the forest floor prevent the Ethiopian biotope from effectively absorbing, filtering, and distributing this water to the environment and, therefore, even to Ethiopia's natural groundwater reservoirs.
In Ethiopia, scientific evidence shows that the impact of Eucalyptus trees on water resources runs counter to that of a healthy forest. By damaging the water distribution system, the Eucalyptus tree also sharply reduces water availability for citizens. In the past, this phenomenon of naturally accumulated water occurred efficiently in Ethiopia's indigenous forests. Ethiopia's Indigenous forests and plants created vital water-preserving mechanisms in the past and had an overwhelmingly positive effect on Ethiopia's early and historical civilization.
Thanks to Ethiopia's native trees' optimized heritage of securing healthy topsoil and the web's undergrowth, this early civilization in Ethiopia built a high and prosperous culture. Then, in the history of the past, Ethiopia was enriched by a tremendous amount of naturally purified spring water that made a strong base for almost everything required in this past high civilization and, hopefully, promising potential for future modern society.
Water Technologies of Historical Civilizations
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| The History of the Environment |
Underground Technology and Reservoirs
These historically early technical and geological methods for managing and saving enormous amounts of water are often technically complex and aesthetically exquisite. While the methods of water technology vary significantly across cultures, continents, and history, their early sophistication often marks an advancement at the peak of their societies. Thus, these historical technologies underpin ancient and modern civilisations, providing the necessary surpluses for the most crucial developments in health and prosperity.
Ethiopia's Devoted Work for Nature Restoration
With its unique Highland Landscape and Climate
Ethiopia's obvious duty is a genuinely outstanding commitment, as the revival of serene dreams has found the country's genuine cradle by restoring a landscape of a nation's natural, noble foundation and pride. However, the previously neglected indigenous Nature demands knowledge and devoted work before evident healing of the country's Nature and freshwater conservation. Yet, despite the rewarding work with Nature in a gorgeous landscape, it's often associated with incredible frustration to recreate healthy Indigenous biotopes by replanting native young saplings on eroding mountain slopes and exposed high plateaus. The recreation of Nature's shielding functions thus requires the devoted work of restoration to regain the guardian effect of a lost indigenous forest with its endemic vegetation of shielding undergrowth. Regarding Ethiopia's unique seasonal climate, with months of heavy downpours over the country's characteristic rugged 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 in a ground where the essential protection and soil stability have regrettably perished.
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A landscape deprived of its native shelter needs much of help to compensate for the lost water and the lack of the shields from the original mother trees. |
Ancient Architecture for Restoration
Water Creation with Grand Beauty
Historical records reveal several practical and aesthetic possibilities for landscape restoration. These options for aesthetic restoration include water management, ground stability, and attractively pleasurable recreation paths. Another way to describe these methods of natural conservation is the effectiveness of irrigation, combined with very gentle and beautiful hiking trails above dizzying precipices.
Delightful Paths Among Spring Water
Environmental Friendly Restoration
Through these micro canals' associated need for strength and reliability, the need for reinforced waterways coincides with the suitability of dramatically beautiful and safe hiking trails. The steep slopes above or beneath these paths deliver extraordinary beauty and grand views of often-impenetrable precipices. In addition, these small water canals are perfectly suitable for manufacturing using the historic self-healing Roman concrete.
The Indigenous Forest Restoration:
Its Demands of Guardian Assistance
Thus, it is often very difficult to recreate a stable and healthy natural environment by replanting a few native trees on a devastated plateau, since these young plants, when planted sporadically, will require tender care, including irrigation, 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 provide a very rudimentary protective network against erosion; instead, there is a clear risk that these few, unprotected young plants will soon perish in the struggle against the great forces of Nature.
Thus, it is often very difficult to recreate a stable and healthy natural environment by replanting a few native trees on a devastated plateau, since these young plants, when planted sporadically, will require tender care, including irrigation, 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 provide a very rudimentary protective network against erosion; instead, there is a clear risk that these few, unprotected young plants will soon perish in the struggle against the great forces of Nature.
The Precarious 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 may include complex technological support for habitat and ecology that was previously, in prehistory, self-evident by Nature's strength itself as a crucial basis for the survival of all higher life forms.
Trees, Shrubs, Flowers and Herbs
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| Entoto Natural Park (Nursery) |
Plant a tree with Inside Ethiopia Tours
Once we arrive on Entoto Mountain, where the capital city was first founded in 1886, you will undoubtedly feel like having mentholated topical ointment. Yes, we are not big fans of the Eucalyptus tree either! We want to promote indigenous seedling planting in Ethiopia by contributing to the Ethiopian Green Legacy. Our guide will accompany you in the local taxis up to the mountain. This is an excellent opportunity for you to experience Ethiopian commuting.
Once we arrive on Entoto Mountain, where the capital city was first founded in 1886, you will undoubtedly feel like having mentholated topical ointment. Yes, we are not big fans of the Eucalyptus tree either! We want to promote indigenous seedling planting in Ethiopia by contributing to the Ethiopian Green Legacy. Our guide will accompany you in the local taxis up to the mountain. This is an excellent opportunity for you to experience Ethiopian commuting.
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Where do you plan to make your mark?
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:
π Call +251 Ethiopia
011-5-15-88-02/ 09-22-97-27-46
Ethiopian Heritage Trust - Plantation of Seedlings
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| Handbook |
Identification, Propagation and
Management for 17 Agroclimatic Zones
Azene Bekele-Tesemma
Edited byBo TengnΓ€s, Ensermu Kelbesa, Sebsibe Demissew and Patrick Maundu
The contents of this handbook may be reproduced without special permission. However, acknowledgement of the source is requested. The photographers and artists concerned must be contacted for the reproduction of illustrations. The views expressed in this publication are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of World Agroforestry Centre.
Edited by
Bo TengnΓ€s, Ensermu Kelbesa, Sebsibe Demissew and Patrick Maundu
The contents of this handbook may be reproduced without special permission. However, acknowledgement of the source is requested. The photographers and artists concerned must be contacted for the reproduction of illustrations. The views expressed in this publication are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of World Agroforestry Centre.
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A not-for-profit charity supporting the Ethiopian Heritage Trust in Addis Ababa
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