Dear Getachew,

Your article on Green Yitachalal was interesting. I don't know what kind of experience you had back home or what your expertise is. However, it seems that we

both have a common interest. I have worked in Ethiopia for over 10 years where I had the opportunity to travel throughout most parts of the country. Starting from the day I begun traveling in Ethiopia until I left the country, all I was able to see was the year to year deterioration of the way people lived and the relentless degradation of the environment.

I can say that I've seen the environment deteriorate right in front of my eyes. For example on the road to Awasa, there was a place around Zewai that had a substantial amount of vegetation cover, mainly Acacia trees. The local people started to cut down the trees to make charcoal and within a few years wind erosion turned that area into a dust bowl. If you go to Gojjam, one of the most fertile areas of Ethiopia, you can see gully erosion in action. A small run off, within a few years, results into a gaping gully. If this continues will Gojjam ever be a major supplier of Tef to the rest of Ethiopia? The process is happening every where.

One of the biggest problems to afforestation projects is peoples' attitude towards a regime. If you remember, during Atse Haile Selassie, some students were actively involved in such projects.Unfortunately, the so called revolutionaries were against the kids calling them "Ye Feudal Butchela" and the project never took roots. Then came the Dergue forcefully mobilizing the entire population to do things. One of the projects was the planting of trees. The radio kept on blaring with the news that so many hundred thousands of trees were planted each year contrary to what we were able to observe. It is true that many trees were planted. Unfortunately they were either deliberately trampled upon by the planters themselves or cattle were driven over them. Also, there were incidents were trees were planted upside down!!

 All this could be taken as a retaliation against an unpopular government. An old Armenian man once told me that during the Italian occupation the same project was initiated by the colonial power. People were given eucalyptus seeds and were told to bring them the next day for preparation of seedlings. That evening the people spent the night roasting the seeds on their brit metad!!

 The thing that most baffles me is why do people take these kinds of drastic measures? Don't they know that a degraded environment affects their daily life? And if it is a retaliation against a regime, when will a regime that will bring people together ever going to come? Or what kind of policies will be able to tap into the collective consciousness of the people? Unless these questions are answered, I am not sure if such projects will ever bear fruit.

Makonnen