Environment

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World Heritage Site listing for Ethiopian park leads to eviction of farming community (news.mongabay.com)

submitted 1 year ago by throws_lemy@lemmy.nz to c/environment@beehaw.org

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[–] SirToxicAvenger@lemm.ee 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

why did 24k people move into a national park? that's the opposite of what a park is for.

[–] millie@beehaw.org 2 points 1 year ago (2 children)

They didn't. They turned the place where 24k people live into a national park on September 18th after deliberating for 15 years.

On Sept. 18, Bale Mountains National Park finally received UNESCO World Heritage Site status, following 15 years of deliberation, thanks to its rich biodiversity and extraordinary beauty.

See? Literally the second paragraph in the actual article.

[–] SirToxicAvenger@lemm.ee 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

guess I should have read it and not skimmed it, my apologies.

[–] athos77@kbin.social 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

No, you weren't wrong. The park was established in 1970, and most of the settlers moved in after that. It's only with the UNESCO designation that the government is actually going to stay protecting the park.

The park has a mix of old and new inhabitants — mostly new. According to the park’s official documents, the park had few permanent settlements before it was established in the 1970s, and only seasonal pastoralists came to graze the grasslands. However, the population and settlements increased rapidly along with a shift from traditional livestock husbandry that grazed through the area, to mixed farming that also plowed the land. Today, the park has more than 3,000 households, each with about eight residents, and seasonal resource users.

[–] SirToxicAvenger@lemm.ee 1 points 1 year ago

huh. that UNESCO designation must have some monetary compensation that comes with it, like a package deal or something.

[–] athos77@kbin.social 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

But that's wrong. The park was created in 1970, and most of the settlers moved in afterward. It's only with the UNESCO designation that the government is actually going to start enforcing the law.

The park has a mix of old and new inhabitants — mostly new. According to the park’s official documents, the park had few permanent settlements before it was established in the 1970s, and only seasonal pastoralists came to graze the grasslands. However, the population and settlements increased rapidly along with a shift from traditional livestock husbandry that grazed through the area, to mixed farming that also plowed the land. Today, the park has more than 3,000 households, each with about eight residents, and seasonal resource users.

[–] millie@beehaw.org 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

The difference between vaguely claiming an area to be a park and not actually doing anything about it and having a UNESCO designation and an intent to enforce the area as being a park is the difference of actually being a park. You could call a residential neighborhood a park, but if you let everybody live there and build houses on it as if it were a residential neighborhood, it's a residential neighborhood.

People have been living on this land their entire lives. Kicking them out of their homes isn't morally equivalent to shooing people off of already protected land.

[–] athos77@kbin.social 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

The park is 857 square miles, in one of the poorest countries in the world. The government has been more concerned with maintaining and increasing supplies of food and water to avoid the previous massively deadly famines, their ongoing border disputes with Eritrea, and other serious issues. Just because something slides under the radar doesn't mean they can get away with it permanently. Plus the government is giving them money to compensate for their illegally built houses.

[–] millie@beehaw.org 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Right, they're focused on more significant problems as well they should be, but we're still talking about actual humans versus what has been a largely theoretical park until very recently.