Abstract
The Ethiopian Highlands are one of the places on earth with the oldest agricultural tradition. Archaeological research indicates that the people of Northern Ethiopia have been cultivating tef for several thousands of years. Environmental degradation in the Northern Ethiopian Highlands is often thought to be the result of mismanagement, overpopulation, or droughts. However, in this contribution we would like to show the importance of the linkages between land degradation and the historical dynamics of the social agro-system and regional land policies. Hence, we will analyse the evolving political ecology of the area by focussing on the uneven power structures in the people-environment interaction in Dogu’a Tembien.
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Further Reading
Holmberg J 1977. Grain Marketing and land reform in Ethiopia: an analysis of the marketing and pricing of food grains in 1976 after the land reform. Research Report. Nordiska Afrikainstitutet, Uppsala, Sweden.
Koehn P 1979. Ethiopia: famine, food production and changes in the legal order. African Studies Review, 22, p. 51–71. 102307/523426.
Lanckriet S, Derudder B, Naudts J, Bauer H, Deckers J, Mitiku Haile, Nyssen J 2015. A political ecology perspective of land degradation in the North Ethiopian Highlands. Land Degradation & Development 26(5): p. 521–530.
Naudts J 2002. Les Hautes Terres de Tembien, Tigré, Ethiopie; Résistance et limites d’une ancienne civilisation agraire; Conséquences sur la dégradation des terres. Mémoire présenté en vue de l’obtention du Diplôme d’Agronomie Tropicale CNEARC: Montpellier.
Nyssen J, Mitiku Haile, Naudts J, Munro N, Poesen J, Moeyersons J, Frankl A, Deckers J, Pankhurst R. 2009. Desertification? Northern Ethiopia rephotographed after 140 years. Science of the Total Environment 407(8): 2749–2755.
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Naudts, J., Lanckriet, S. (2019). Political Ecology of Land Degradation in the Tembien Highlands. In: Nyssen, J., Jacob, M., Frankl, A. (eds) Geo-trekking in Ethiopia’s Tropical Mountains. GeoGuide. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-04955-3_5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-04955-3_5
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