Landscape, people and parks: Environmental change in the Lower Omo Valley, Southwestern Ethiopia

Project outline

The Lower Omo Valley is one of the longest-inhabited human landscapes in the world. In 1980 it became a UNESCO World Heritage Site, in recognition of its ‘fundamental importance in the study of human evolution’ (discoveries made here include the oldest known fossils of Homo sapiens). Today it is home to nine different ethnic groups practicing a wide range of subsistence activities (pastoralism, flood-retreat and shifting cultivation, hunting and fishing) and speaking seven different languages. Despite its long history of human occupation, the area has been classified by conservationists as a ‘pristine wildernesses’, from which human use and occupation should be excluded. Two national parks were established in the late 1960s which subsequently became embroiled in controversy over the role of local people in the management of protected areas. Even more controversial has been the construction of a hydro-electric dam in the middle Omo basin which, by eliminating the annual flood, will make possible the conversion of thousands of hectares of savanna in the lower basin into irrigated commercial plantations.

The ‘Landscape People and Parks’ project is the first landscape-scale attempt to understand the interaction between people and the environment in the lower Omo. The project team is inter-disciplinary, including one historian, two anthropologists and one palaeoecologist. Research methods have included the collection and analysis of oral histories of land use and settlement over the past two hundred years; a study of library and archival sources relating to the history of the lower Omo since the 1880s; a study of long term vegetation change, using fossil pollen and charcoal counting; and a study of vegetation structure and its immediate response to human action over the past forty years.  

The overall aim of the project has been to reach a detailed understanding of the sequence of environmental changes and of the way these changes have influenced, and have been influenced by, the land-use practices and migratory movements of the human population.

Achievements

Palaeoecological research, based on the analysis of fossilised pollen from hyrax middens in the northern part of the study area resulted in a 2000-year record of vegetation change. This is the first time such evidence of long term vegetation change in the lower Omo Valley has been obtained and the first time this particular method of obtaining fossilised pollen has been attempted in East Africa.  Both the palaeoecological research and the study of bush encroachment in the savanna over the shorter term helped to demonstrate the wider relevance and value of integrating ecological and local knowledge of landscape change.

Oral history interviews carried out amongst the peoples of the study area, combined with a thorough examination of secondary sources, resulted in the most comprehensive and detailed account yet given of the complex processes of identity formation in the lower Omo over the past two hundred years.  

In September 2009 the project brought together scholars from various disciplines (history, anthropology, palaeoecology and archaeology) who have worked in the lower Omo over the past forty years, for an international workshop on ‘Anthropology and History along the Omo.’  

As the only source of academic research data on the history of human-environmental relations in the Lower Omo, the project has had a significant, if difficult to quantify, impact on two controversial policy debates concerning the future of river basin development in the lower Omo: the future of state-sponsored conservation and the investment in hydro-power and large-scale commercial irrigation schemes. Project members have contributed to these debates through conference papers and presentations, media interviews and frequent discussions with politicians, administrators, human rights activists and aid officials.

Ongoing influence

It is hoped that the project will have a lasting influence on the direction of academic research in this and similar African landscapes and, directly and indirectly, on policy decisions which will determine the future of the lower Omo and its people for years to come. The project has pioneered a range of new methods for the study of the interaction between people and their environment. These include; seeing the lower Omo landscape as an integrated system of relationships, geographically, historically, economically and culturally, rather than as a site for the study of separate ‘peoples and cultures’; adopting an inter-disciplinary approach, embracing history, anthropology, ecology/palaeoecology and (through ‘spin-off’ research) archaeology; combining ecological science with local knowledge and perceptions of the environment in order to reach a better understanding of landscape change; and establishing long-term trends in landscape change through the use of fossilised pollen obtained from hyrax middens.

The project’s findings are relevant to national park management in the lower Omo and elsewhere. It is hoped that the emphasis placed on local knowledge, perceptions and constructions of the environment will contribute to a re-thinking of the deeply rooted ‘preservationist’ assumptions that have guided wildlife conservation in Ethiopia since the 1960s.

The project’s most intense engagement with the world of policy and practice has been the Gibe III hydro-electric dam, the largest in Africa, which is now under construction in the middle Omo Basin.  As the main source of academic research data on the recent history of human-environmental relations in the lower Omo, the project is in a unique position to contribute to the debate about how to ameliorate the negative downstream impacts of the dam. Project members have addressed meetings on this issue in London and the Hague and have discussed it with key Ethiopian government officials, including the Minister for Water and Energy, the head of the Electric Power Corporation and the head of the Environmental Protection Authority. The project was the subject of Crossing Continents on BBC Radio 4 in March 2009.

The project has also resulted in a ‘spin-off’ archaeological study which represents the first systematic attempt to explore the as yet little-understood prehistory of the lower Omo.