Sugar industrialization and distress selling of livestock among the Bodi pastoralists in Ethiopia’s lower Omo valley

This article, based on long-term fieldwork, argues that the Bodi, a small agro-pastoral community in Ethiopia’s lower Omo Valley, are experiencing distress selling of livestock and are undergoing collective impoverishment. These processes are a result of the rapid comprehensive transformations unfolding in the valley, which are themselves a product of the state’s aggressive resource extraction interests. These interests mainly relate to the building of the Gilgel Gibe III dam on the Omo River and the establishment of large-scale sugar estates. Increased insecurity in the valley followed these interventions. When combined, these changes resulted in the deterioration of the food security and livelihood situations of the Bodi, and the community attempted to cope by selling animals from their herds. Hence, the main reasons for market engagement relate to (1) coping with hunger, (2) coping with a high incidence of animal diseases and (3) coping with high rates of imprisonment of men. The Bodi also engage in three constrained livelihood alternatives: rain-fed farming, irrigated farming and wage employment. This article recommends that resolving the Bodi’s erosion of livelihoods necessitates addressing insecurity and the related socio-political outcomes, which lie at the heart of the Bodi’s dwindling livelihood situation and impoverishment.

How dry was the LGM? A Biosphere-Hydrosphere modelling approach for the paleo-lake Chew Bahir and Omo-River catchment in southern Ethiopia

<p>The formation of the East African Rift System led to the emergence of large topographical contrasts in southern Ethiopia. This extreme topography is in turn responsible for an extreme gradient in the distribution of precipitation between the dry lowlands (~500 mm a<sup>-1</sup>) in the surrounding of Lake Turkana and the moist western Ethiopian Highlands (~2,000 mm a<sup>-1</sup>). As a consequence, the prevailing vegetation is fractionated into a complex mosaic that includes desert scrubland along the Lake Turkana shore, woodlands and wooded grasslands in the Omo-River lowlands and the paleo-lake Chew Bahir catchment, afro-montane forests of the Ethiopian Highlands, and afro-alpine heath in most elevated parts. During the past 25 ka, southern Ethiopia has been exposed to significant climate changes, from a dry and cold Last Glacial Maximum (LGM, 25-18 ka BP) to the African Humid Period (AHP, 15-5 ka BP), and back to present-day dry conditions. These shifts in temperature and precipitation may have affected the vegetation pattern and landscape in the area, but environmental data especially from LGM times are rare. This is because in times of a dry climate the paleo-lake Chew Bahir was dried up and hence the climate record in lake sediments was interrupted.</p><p>In this study, we investigate the hydrological conditions during the LGM using a previously-developed lake balance model (LBM) for southern Ethiopia, which is now coupled with a new predictive vegetation model (PVM) to better understand the biosphere-hydrosphere interactions and thus possible precipitation thresholds. The PVM is based on the method of boosted regression trees using elevation and monthly precipitation as input to predict land-cover, tree-cover and vegetation greenness for a ~1 km grid covering the Omo-River, paleo-lake Chew Bahir, Lake Chamo and Lake Abaya catchments. We linked the PVM and the resulting land surface parameters with the LBM to model the impact of a changing land-cover to the actual evaporation. Furthermore, we used the glycerol dialkyl glycerol tetraethers (GDGT) based paleo-temperature and tropical lapse rate reconstructions from Mount Kenya to consider the orographic temperature distribution in southern Ethiopia during the LGM. Using both, we simulated different precipitation amounts from 100% to 50% compared to the modern-day multi-annual averages and their effect on vegetation and lake levels of paleo-lake Chew Bahir. Our biosphere-hydrosphere modelling approach suggests 25 to 30% lower moisture availability during the LGM compared to the modern conditions and provides a high-resolution spatial reconstruction of the potential prevailing vegetation in the southern Ethiopian region.</p>

Linking Paleo Vegetation Modelling with a Phytolith Record for the African Humid Period (15 - 5 ka BP) of the Omo-River-Lowlands and the Chew Bahir Basin, southern Ethiopia

<p>Modern-day southern Ethiopia exhibits a complex mosaic of vegetation types. These types range from desert scrubland along the shores of Lake Turkana, to woodlands and wooded grasslands in the Omo-River-Lowlands and Chew Bahir catchment, and Afromontane forests of the Ethiopian Highlands. Over the past 20 ka, this region has experienced a variable climate, from the dry Last Glacial Maximum (25-18 ka BP) to the wet African Humid Period (15-5 ka BP), and back to present-day dry conditions. These oscillations likely had an impact on the biosphere and its human inhabitants. The biosphere, especially climate-induced changes in vegetation, in turn have a feedback effect on the local climate – and must therefore be considered in climate models and hydro-balance models. However, there are hardly any data on changes in vegetation during the dry-humid-dry transition of the AHP that could be used to parameterize such models.</p><p>As a contribution to an enhanced understanding of the role that paleo-vegetation could have played during those transitions, we present here a new comprehensive vegetation model. This study links a Predictive Vegetation Model (PVM) with the available vegetation-proxy records from southern Ethiopia, including a new phytolith record from Chew Bahir. The PVM uses an 18-year averaged time series of the Global Precipitation Measurement as well as SRTM elevation data to predict an 18-year averaged time series of MODIS landcover and vegetation parameters using boosted regression trees. We linked the PVM and resulting surface parameters (moisture availability, surface drag coefficient, albedo) with an existing hydro-balance model of the southern Ethiopian Rift to calculate precipitation during the AHP and hence also model the paleo-vegetation during this period. Available paleo-vegetation data including a new grass phytolith record from the sediments of an 11 m-meter long sediment core from the margin of paleo-Lake Chew Bahir were then used to compare model and proxy results. Being able to validate our new model data with actual vegetation proxy data for the first time enables us to gain valuable insights into the paleo-dimension of the vegetation mosaic of southern Ethiopia, a possible habitat of early<em> Homo sapiens</em>.</p>

Settlement and clanship of Wolaitta in Omo River Valley of Ethiopia

The purpose of this article is to asses the settlement and clanship of Wolaitta in Omo River Valley of Ethiopia. The existing evidences do not indicate the settlement and clanship of Wolaitta in Omo River Valley of Ethiopia. The study was conducted through qualitative research method. Both primary and secondary sources were used. Based on the sources, the study proved that Dolla-Woyisha clan has been first born inhabitants of Wolaitta in Omo River Valley, and the study avoids confusion on the settlement and clanship of Wolaitta in Omo River Valley. Thus, early inhabitants known as Dolla-Woyisha clan has been assimilated with the immigrant clan of Tossa-Woyisha which led to the developments of settlement and clanship in Wolaitta. Finally, based on findings, the existence of early clan along with the domestication of crops such as uta (false banana), and Wolaitta-donuwa (Wolaitta-potato) and animals such as so-mehiya (cattle) proves the settlement and clanship of Wolaitta in Omo River Valley of Ethiopia.