Ethiopia's Tigray Region and its Project for Greening its Drylands

A couple of weeks ago, a major project to restore land in Ethiopia’s Tigray Region to boost millions of people’s ability to grow food won gold on in a U.N.-backed award for the world’s best policy to combat desertification and improve fertility of drylands.

Africa's rate of desertification has been astonishing, and it has progressed at a rather alarming rate. The Tigray region in Ethiopia has received a lot of positive recognition from all over the world due to their impressive and enterprising efforts in greening the drylands. The drylands of the Tigray region are home to 4.3 million people and they are being restored on a massive scale.

The World Future Council, a foundation which organised the award together with the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD), noted all this, and found it very special to give the Tigray region the merits they deserve, and for setting a good precedent for other African countries to emulate and follow. The Tigray government has mobilised villagers to volunteer 20 days a year to build terraces, irrigation projects, build stone walls on mountains and hillsides, and other projects.

As a result of this, the environment has undergone tremendous improvement. Groundwater levels have risen at a considerable rate. Soil erosion has been reduced and the people's ability to earn substantial incomes through farming activities has also seen a positive trajectory. It is a story of how people are moved by sheer determination to conserve their environment. it is not only a matter of conserving the environment for themselves, but they are doing impressive work through the consideration of the future generations that will be inhabitants of the Tigray region.

“Ethiopia’s Tigray region shows that restoration of degraded land can be a reality … The model provides hope for other African countries to follow suit,” Alexandra Wandel, director of the World Future Council, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

Drylands have always proved to be a menacing source of counter-production in many societies. Drylands are particularly vulnerable to losing fertility through changes in climate and poor land use such as deforestation or overgrazing, and they account for nearly 40% of the Earth's land, the UNCCD noted. The negative environmental impacts of this are a grave risk to the continued sustenance of the human race.

The Tigray region started working on their environment since 1991 and the improvements have been huge, and have been extremely beneficial. Soil and water conservation have seen the region being greener than it had been say, 145 years ago. The human investment thrust towards this noble initiative has been able forestall looming environmental dangers.

This is an example that other African countries could follow, and the results seen are of great value. Conservation of the environment is becoming an area of paramount importance in the epoch we are living, and in many years to come.