{"id":219691,"date":"2018-05-02T15:08:28","date_gmt":"2018-05-02T19:08:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/?p=219691"},"modified":"2019-02-10T09:36:17","modified_gmt":"2019-02-10T14:36:17","slug":"ethiopias-forests-an-undervalued-resource","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/219691","title":{"rendered":"Ethiopia\u2019s forests, an undervalued resource"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Tefera Mengistu Woldie<\/p>\n

In Ethiopia, the second most populous country in Africa after Nigeria, policymakers are trying to make their nation\u2019s economic development more sustainable.<\/p>\n

One of the challenges they face is that traditional economic accounting does not adequately consider nature\u2019s contributions to a country\u2019s economy.<\/p>\n

Ethiopia\u2019s forests cover about 14.7 per cent of the country\u2019s land area, with woodland and shrubland accounting for another 44.7 per cent. But the value of these ecosystems to the national economy is not well understood.<\/p>\n

For example, Ethiopia\u2019s System of National Accounts is used to calculate Gross Domestic Product (GDP), but it\u2019s uncertain whether this system fully captures the income that forests produce.<\/p>\n

Official statistics from the Ministry of Finance and Economic Cooperation show the forestry sector\u2019s contribution to be about 3.8 per cent of gross domestic product, or GDP.<\/p>\n

But a\u00a0UN Environment report\u00a0concludes that forests generated economic benefits in the form of cash and in-kind income equivalent to 12.86 per cent of GDP in 2012 and 2013.<\/p>\n

\"Ethiopia
Beekeeping is an example of an economic activity that relies on the health of Ethiopia’s forests.\u00a0<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In 2014, the Government of Ethiopia requested the\u00a0UN Programme on Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation<\/a>\u00a0(through UN Environment) to support the country in assessing the contribution of forest ecosystems to national income in the context of the national\u00a0REDD+<\/a>\u00a0process.<\/p>\n

UN Environment\u2019s resulting\u00a0report<\/a>\u00a0assessed \u2013 for the first time \u2013 the economic contributions of Ethiopia\u2019s forests.<\/p>\n

Main findings<\/strong><\/p>\n

Forests generated economic benefits in the form of cash and in-kind income equivalent to 12.86 per cent of GDP in 2012 and 2013; of this, 6.09 per cent of GDP is attributed to forest industries. This means that forest income has been undervalued by about\u00a038 per cent, because official statistics show the sector\u2019s contribution to be 3.8 per cent (2015).<\/p>\n

The contribution of forest ecosystems\u00a0(including carbon sequestration, crop pollination, conservation of agricultural soils and control of water discharge to streams and rivers)\u00a0to other sectors, particularly agriculture, is valued at 6.77 per cent of GDP.<\/p>\n

The fodder livestock farmers obtain freely (by allowing their animals to graze on forest land) was worth about 3.5 per cent of GDP.<\/p>\n

Wood fuel\u2019s value added is estimated at about 4.5 per cent of GDP.<\/span><\/p>\n

Ethiopia’s Green Economy Strategy<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Government of Ethiopia launched a Climate Resilient and Green Economy Strategy in 2011, with the goal of achieving middle-income status for the country by 2025 while following a carbon-neutral growth path. REDD+ implementation is one of the pillars of the Strategy.<\/p>\n

The Strategy recognizes that deforestation and forest degradation must be reversed if the country is to meet its development goals. Wood fuel accounts for more than 80 per cent of household energy supply in Ethiopia and is particularly important in rural areas.<\/p>\n

\"Forest
Giant forest hogs in Ethiopia’s Barenna Forest.\u00a0<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

How the study can help policymakers<\/strong><\/p>\n

The study\u2019s findings can help strengthen the national REDD+ process in Ethiopia by, among other things, enabling the relevant government agencies to better understand the extent to which Ethiopia\u2019s forests underpin the economy, thereby building support across different ministries for REDD+ implementation.<\/p>\n

The findings could provide the basis for updating Ethiopia\u2019s System of National Accounts with a more accurate account of forest-derived benefits in GDP, particularly the subsistence or in-kind income derived from forests, such as fodder for livestock, wood fuel and roundwood.<\/p>\n

The results and recommendations could be incorporated in the REDD+ National Strategy and potentially also be reflected in Ethiopia\u2019s Growth and Transformation Plan 2 (GTP2) or any subsequent products and reports based on GTP2.<\/p>\n

UN Environment\u2019s economic valuation study has made the \u201cinvisible visible\u201d by highlighting how forests contribute not only to the value added of the forestry sector but also other non-forest industries, both in cash and in-kind income.<\/p>\n

Implementing the Climate Resilient and Green Economy Strategy, therefore, makes economic sense. In doing so, Ethiopia can safeguard its natural capital, including its forests \u2013 valuable resources on which the economy depends to a considerable extent.<\/p>\n

\n

Tefera Mengistu Woldie is National Coordinator, Institutional Strengthening for the Forest Sector Development Program at Ethiopia\u2019s Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change, and UN Environment\u2019s\u00a0Ivo Mulder<\/a>, Finance and Private Sector Coordinator of the UN-REDD Programme.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Tefera Mengistu Woldie In Ethiopia, the second most populous country in Africa after Nigeria, policymakers are trying to make their nation\u2019s economic development more sustainable. One of the challenges they face is that traditional economic accounting does not adequately consider nature\u2019s contributions to a country\u2019s economy. Ethiopia\u2019s forests cover about 14.7 per cent of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":219692,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[4588,4589],"class_list":["post-219691","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-ethiopian-news","tag-ethiopia","tag-ethiopian-forests"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/Ethiopian-forests.jpg?fit=707%2C392&ssl=1","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9NivD-V9p","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/219691","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=219691"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/219691\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":219693,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/219691\/revisions\/219693"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/219692"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=219691"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=219691"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=219691"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}