You Never Fish a Fish Alone In Agro-Ecological Practice

• Assosa Wereda of Benshangul Gumuz Regional State
• Lude Hitosa Wereda of Oromia Regional State
• Semurobi Gelaelo Wereda of Afar Regional State
• Debub Sodo Wereda of SNNP Regional State
• Kewet Wereda of Amhara Regional State
• Wereda 10; Yeka Sub-city of Addis Ababa Administration

 

According to PELUM Ethiopia our natural resource management is based on people centered development and respect for indigenous knowledge by the empowerment of land users. So as to this PELUM operates under the principles of Participatory Ecological Land Use Management. Our work goes for sustainable development through adaptation and mitigation to the negative effect of climate change under smallholder management.

The relevant project is run in and around churches and Monasteries. This project is entitled as “Church Forest Management”and financially supported by EOC-DICAC.Another project called “Conserving Bio-cultural Diversity through Strengthening Community and Ecosystem Resilience” supported byAfrican Biodiversity Network (ABN).

PELUM Association in general and PELUM Ethiopia in particular recognize the importance of indigenous knowledge and practices. Some of the core values of PELUM Association are people-centered development, respect for indigenous knowledge and participation. Moreover, it goes to contribute to the on-going development of knowledge, skills and methods which spread the practice of PELUM and food security; training and to share information, innovations and experiences; and, enhance the capacity of network members and partners. It gives priority to true participation of local people for community-led research, development and documentation.The most important activities are Community Learning Group (CLG). CLG is important for true participation of beneficiaries to share experience, training manual preparation, conduct research and influence policies. One good example of the project is the support of SOS FAIM (Belgium), which encourage farmers to learn from each other. A project called "AVACLIM: Agroecology, ensuring food security and sustainable livelihoods while mitigating climate change and restoring land in dryland regions" is also supported by Centre d'Actionset de Réalisation Internationales (CARI).

In the face of climate change environment and agriculture are highly suffered due to international corporate companies by influencing internal policies. This is one way of shadowing the sovereign right of the grass-root communities. For example, the push for Genetically Modified Organism (GMOs) globally can be challenged through promoting agro-biodiversity; lobbying and advocacy to safeguard rural communities in the areas of sustainable agriculture. Therefore, we need to achieve effective and stronger voices together. There are many more agendas to confront policy gaps together with land users. At the same time PELUM Ethiopia started sensitization at all level against external influence. Against the move of engineering enset we started enset biodiversity conservation and eradicating Bacterial wilt on DebubSodoWereda, Gurage Zone at the grassroot.