Wenchi’s pioneering steps in ecotourism

By Addis Mulugeta

Ensuring local communities benefit from tourism, especially when visitors come because of their local resources or cultural characteristics, is a noble, though daunting, task. One organization is on the cutting edge of this practice, the Wenchi Ecotourism Association.
Many (relatively) well-visited tourist destinations in Ethiopia are characterized by the inhabitants who have little in the way of access to economic alternatives and hence suffer sever hardship and environmental degradation as they turn to exploiting the very natural resources that draw visitors.
But just a few kilometers west of Addis Ababa, there is a model that many communities across the country could look to with an eye to ensuring local communities benefit from visitors. As the road climbs between pasture and fields of grain and (false banana tree), the magnificent landscape of Wenchi, a crater with step green sides and deep blue lake at the bottom, suddenly appears.
This paradise has retained much of its beauty and harmony with the local community in recent years due in large part to the association organized ecotourism activities and management of natural resources in the area of the volcano. To make it more comfortable for tourists from all segments of society, with the help of the German NGO GTZ, the local community has successfully organized tourism excursions and activities to make for quite a pleasant visit.
The Ethiopian Environmental Journalist Association (EEJA) recently traveled to this paradise on the road connecting Ambo to Weliso in the Oromia Regional State. One of the most immediately striking features is the absence of heckling as benefits of organized tourism are quite apparent. Standards of living appear relatively improved as evidenced by house construction quality and healthy appearances.
The honey from the area, collected at the end of the rainy season, between October and December, is yellow-amber in color with a very fine texture, and has been exported to Europe since 2006. The group of 26 beekeepers are also part of the Wenchi Ecotourism Association, evidencing the multi-pronged approach taken.
Meresa Haile Meskel is the secretary and at the same time acting local tourist guide of the Association. He has an exemplary story for those who have risen from rather depressing circumstances. While he accomplished high school in 2004, his results did not allow joining university. then something came to his mind. He was identifying a mechanism to use his local resource potential as sources of income for himself and the local community at large.
He began exploring ways to change the informal way of serving tourists into a formalized processes by subdividing the community into 11 groups as local guides, horse and boat renting, women in handicraft and coffee ceremony groups for tourists, forest and environment conservation, honey producers up to export standards, and saving and credit groups etc. Based on an internal rule, 8% of proceeds from all association activities are set aside for a community development fund.
NGOs such as GTZ, CONAPI (the Consortium of Italian Organic Beekeepers and Farmers) and the US Ambassador to Ethiopia self-help program started to help this association in various ways. Now, CONAPI has brought technical experts to Wenchi beekeepers to promote their honey production in different countries in Europe including Italy and German and has even invited some of the members to visit Europe for experience sharing.
The American self-help program also donated 10,000 dollars to the Association to purchase additional boats. GTZ is the major contributor for the association by giving addition skill training for different groups of the association and practically working with the local community to conserve the environment and the ecotourism of Wenchi. Their website could be considered one of the best tourist sites devoted to Ethiopia.
Kebede Zewdi, Environmental and Tourism Expert in GTZ, told Capital that the project was started even before the association was established in 2002 under the objective of conserving Wenchi’s volcanic lake. Awareness creation was their first strategy to sustain their economic growth and the environment, to protect the biodiversity and health condition of the community.
According to an association document, last year alone, 10,000 tourists visited the area. They generated 250,000 birr from different services and another 100,000 birr exporting honey. According to association bylaws, 15,000 birr went to the community for forest management and to preserve the indigenous trees like Egynia abyssinica (Kosso), Erica arborea (Hasta), and juniper.
While the association way established by a group of 21 members in 2004, now the number has increased into 200.

An open door for all – even disabled

Recently, our
parliament has done
something that might come as a total bolt from the blue, at least to me. A draft bill suggesting any organization which plans construction of new buildings must give consideration for access to persons with physical disabilities has been tabled to the Parliament during its ordinary session on Tuesday, November 25, 2008.
It could not have come at a better time either, as the world has just observed this year’s International Day of Persons with Disabilities. The theme for this year’s observation was “Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities: Dignity and justice for all of us”.
It has been almost two decades since the UN designated December 3rd of every year to be a day when good hearted people from around the globe volunteer to do things of varying degrees to recognize, honor, and promote the values of persons with disabilities. Since then, a lot has been done and lot is to come as long as people act on their promises.
It is difficult to give a simple meaning as to what constitutes “persons with physical disabilities”. If not universally, many people however agree on the definition that “persons with disabilities include those who have long-term physical, mental, intellectual or sensory impairments which in interaction with various barriers may hinder their full and effective participation in society on an equal basis with others”.
Of the more than 650 million physically disabled people around the world, it is estimated that more than eight million of them are Ethiopians, according to the Ethiopian Federation for Peoples with Disabilities. That is a figure too large to have been alienated from having simple and basic rights of human beings such as being able to access buildings and transport facilities. And yet, that is what people with disabilities in Ethiopia have to go through in their everyday life.
One can rummage around to find places, whether it is in any given building, a shopping mall, a bus or taxi terminal, an open market or an office, where useful facilities thought and designed to make the life of people with physical disabilities easy – the search will be in vain.
Not to mention non-existing employment opportunities and social ostracism, people with physical disabilities have to face, there is almost no place, for instance, that is easily accessible by a wheelchair. Nor is a place - from lavatory to parking lot - that is reserved or assigned for those who are physically challenged to use regular ones. Sadly, even university libraries theaters, cinemas and museums are often off limits by all sorts of people with disabilities.
Thumbs up for whoever initiated the bill, but it is against such backdrop that members of the House of People’s Representatives (HPR) have submitted a bill requesting an introduction of building standards in Ethiopia to meet requirements by people with physical disabilities. The provision of such a bill could range from accessing the building to using each of the facilities in the building as equally as other people.
The fact that the bill has passed the trial of securing endorsement signatures of at least 20 representatives to have been labeled to the pertinent bodies of the House for further scrutiny is an indication that, despite delays on the way, it will one day become a law. Although no additional information could be obtained on this specific topic, it was mentioned that the Speaker of the House had the bill presented to the House for a first reading.
According to Ethiopia’s constitution “once the House deliberates on the bill, the House Speaker channels it to the appropriate committee, which in turn reviews the case and presents its recommendations at one of the sessions. After deliberations are once again conducted on the bill, the Speaker of the House would make public the consensus reached by the representatives. The bill could become a law once the President signs it and is published in the Negarit Gazetta as stipulated in the HPR’s Statute.”
It feels it is going to be a long way to have the final results up for grabs but a long way is no reason not to have it amended as a law. Above all, a delay in the declaration of such a law should not be another excuse for future building constructions to take a form of business as usual. That should be the first step where the second one can only be better.
Tsedale Lemma
Media Specialist
Embassy of Israel