The African Conservation Fund

African Conservation Fund director Roseann Hanson is in Ethiopia now, working with new partners on plans for a conservation workshop in the southern Rift Valley in March, 2007.

"Friends and family have admitted to me that when I said I was en route to Ethiopia, all they knew of this country was from media images of drought, flood, famine and sad children's faces amid landscapes of extreme desolation. But Ethiopia comprises one of the world's most diverse assemblage of cultures, landscapes, and wildlife - enhanced by an equally rich and ancient history.

From the live volcanic landscapes of the Afar and the enchanting castles of the Gonder in the north, to the lush Highlands and searing soda-lakes of the south, Ethiopia is much more than what the media feeds us. One of the oldest countries - some three millenia - and Africa's most fiercely pround and independent - successfully repelling colonization attempts by Britain and Italy - Ethiopia's cultures and landscapes are closely linked. People have lived here in one place for so long that they retain the ties that the rest of the world has lost: nature makes culture, and culture influences nature.

African Conservation Fund and our partner African Conservation Centre are embarking on a project here due to our partnership with the Christensen Fund. On behalf of some several dozen communities in the southern Ethiopian Rift Valley, we will be mobilizing the community conservation expertise of the Centre to assist them with planning their future as the world around them changes.

In March of 2007 some 40 elders and representatives will convene in Arba Minch and work with Kenyan community conservation leaders to identify key issues and to map a road ahead to conservation of landscapes and cultures. Then, later that year, some 60 community representatives will travel to Kenya where three communities there will conduct trainings in ecotourism enterprise, game scouts programs, land management, and conservation planning.

I will send more images and reports as the trip progresses, and I learn more about this amazing country and people."

Sitting at 10,000 feet overlooking Addis Abeba in the valley. Addis is a large and modern city,  beautiful and bustling with commerce of several million residents.

The forest below is planted eucalyptus - residents deforested everything for firewood ages ago but the hills were replanted by a government program. The eucalyptus smells heavenly, was full of birds though likely not the original suite of indigenous birds that were in the native forest canopy. It grows quickly, is renewable, and easily cut.