Fassil Gebeyehu has been working for the Institute for Sustainable Development (ISD) in Ethiopia for over a decade. As a partner of the Gaia Foundation and the African Biodiversity Network, Fassil has taken part in a number of experiential processes offered by the network as a means of redefining Africa's post-colonial identity and re-asserting Africa's traditional culture. One such process is held annually at the Ngwenyama lodge in Botswana. Led by traditional doctors and Sangomas Colin and Niall Campbell, the process offers a space for reflection, solitude in wilderness, and open discussion. It has had profound impacts upon those who have taken part. Here Fassil talks about his experiences and how they played a part in his own personal and professional journey thereafter.

Tell us a bit about the Botswana process and what you took from it.

It blew my mind, it was all so new to me and such an inspiring way of thinking.

I attended the Botswana workshop in 2003, the first one ever held in fact. The workshop is fundamentally a self-reflecting process, with practical activities such as spending time in the forest - in Nature - woven into the experience. It was really an unforgettable experience for me.

The camp is totally removed from the town, in the middle of the forest. The workshop base was more like a homestead like the one where I grew up, and this was intentional, this is all part of ensuring that the setting is traditional, not modern. As a group of around a dozen participants, the process really brought us together and we started talking from the bottom of our heart. Cormac Cullinan, author of Wild Law, was part of the group. He told us about the background to writing his book and about the principles of law being guided by Nature - it blew my mind, it was all so new to me and such an inspiring way of thinking.

One of the main aspects of the workshop was to reflect upon the capitalist world-view and our experiences of it. We reflected on our philosophies and explored indigenous ways of learning. This was about reminding us of our roots, of our identity, and recognising the impact of colonisation in terms of quashing Africa's true cultural and spiritual identity. We began to re-learn what it really meant to be an indigenous African. There was a lot to digest, this was a whole new way of learning quite unlike the education system which had raised us. It took me time to reflect and digest all that we shared.

The spirit that emerged amongst us all through this process and dialogue was very strong. I can really say that it inspired me; it transformed me.

As the process came to a close we all agreed to go back to our roots and to explore what is really happening in our communities in this challenging contemporary context. We agreed that we should return to our communities and then come together again to share our experiences.

So how did the process impact upon your work with communities?

We all left with a renewed sense of wanting to achieve something great within our communities; we wanted to go back to our own roots as part of the process of really understanding how we can support rural and indigenous communities with whom we were working.

After this intense experience I think it's fair for me to say that we all left with a renewed sense of wanting to achieve something great within our communities; we wanted to go back to our own roots as part of the process of really understanding how we can support rural and indigenous communities with whom we were working.

Another important aim of the Botswana workshop was to explore our role with communities: to define exactly what our role should be. This came out strongly and was a really vital part of what we all took from the experience.

In our discussion it became clear that communities, their ecology and environment and their governance were all so interrelated that they must be treated as such in any approach working with them. It was in fact this discussion that really seeded the thinking behind what later became termed the Community Ecological Governance (CEG) approach used by my colleagues at the African Biodiversity Network, and what is now termed Ecological Community Resilience (ECR).

Did you and the other participants of the 2003 Botswana process come back together and share your experiences as you had said you would?

We came together once again in 2007. The changes in everyone were very clear to me. The changes in their experiences of themselves and the environments in which they had been working were staggering in that four years.

We had all come to see clearly just what impact the western development model had had on both people and their environment. Colleagues shared stories from their communities like the fact that they no longer feared lions because the lions had been pushed back by development model and now people don't hear the lions call anymore. This may strike some people as a good thing but it is not. These changes to the natural world and their habits and habitats were happening everywhere and they have huge knock on effects, many of which cannot be understood for some time afterwards.

It was plain for us to see that the communities were becoming more and more a victim of development and modernisation.

Tell us about your personal experience of returning to your community after the Botswana process.

I returned to Ethiopia after the process eager to go back to my roots and to look differently at the development approach. I was hugely supported by the African Biodiversity Network and the Institute of Sustainable Development (ISD) to do this. A couple of months after the process I went returned to the community in which I had grown up; a community which the western education system that had schooled me, had made me feel that I should leave. It had been twenty years since I had been there. I left my community during my childhood and then returned only very briefly when I was 19.

When I got there things had completely changed. There was huge change in terms of landscape - forest cover, agriculture, ritual places, settlement areas, water sources - they had all either disappeared or were looking baron and lifeless. The traditional set up of homesteads had been influenced by a modern way of villagization. The construction of roads had meant that people were settling beside them - trying to sell wares or attract goods - so the communities had become dispersed and fractured. It was no longer the community I so fondly remembered.

There was one village - called Keyarata - which had maintained its traditional ways. There were around 250 huts in close proximity to one another. Every morning and night they would gather for a coffee ceremony. They had the equivalent of a shaman conducting the ceremony and each member of the village would bring some form of edible contribution to the coffee ceremony.

The 'development' had been driven by the governments regional offices. Their idea of development is just equipping peoples in a materialistic way - but its all just "things" - fertilisers, pesticides and so on, and all these things come with clever ideologies, or marketing, which influence the thinking of the community; they are ways of brainwashing communities to think that this is what they need. This is not new to a western audience of course, this sort of marketing has been successfully luring people to buy things that they don't want for decades!

In Ethiopia, and indeed across Africa, these "things" aren't for the good of the community, they are just to line someone else's pockets. The idea of development had emerged in the area and its influence had also had other, perhaps less predictable, impacts. The younger generation had been inspired by these more 'modern' incomers and decided to leave their communities and seek jobs for a "better life". With this multitude of changes, the fracturing of the community was ten fold.

But, there was one village - called Keyarata - which had maintained its traditional ways. There were around 250 huts in close proximity to one another. Every morning and night they would gather for a coffee ceremony. They had the equivalent of a shaman conducting the ceremony and each member of the village would bring some form of edible contribution to the coffee ceremony.

Keyarata is located in the highlands of North West Ethiopia, around 600km from Addis, along challenging roads and tracks. The land surrounding the village was poor, the soil was degraded, the forest cover depleted. I went there because they knew my father. They warmly welcomed me and so I spent about a week there sharing my experiences with them.

They community wanted to hear all about the western worldview, and my experience of it. Humans, by nature, need and want to know more. It's just a fact. They wanted to know all about the way others live in the world, and all about their belief systems. But I must emphasise that they were comfortable with the way that they were living, it was the way that their ancestors had lived and they were proud of it and felt strongly that it would continue. Their concern was not around material things or changing their lifestyle, nor did they know that their indigenous way of living was potentially threatened by others - by the wider world. What they were concerned about however was what they could see with their own eyes and what they seemed to be unable to prevent: The degradation of their environment, the loss of their knowledge system and the peer influence that meant their children were rebelling and no longer supporting the family. This is why they really challenged me, why did I leave the community? Why had I been interested in the western way of life?

How did you develop these dialogues and begin working with the community more closely to protect their landscape and their traditional way of life?

They were so happy to know that somewhere, their community way of living was being respected, and that someone didn't want to change them or 'develop' their way of living.

It was after these initial dialogues and the community's intrigue into my own personal motivations to leave my home village that I began to tell them all about my experience in Botswana. They were so happy to know that somewhere, their community way of living was being respected, and that someone didn't want to change or 'develop' them. I suggested they could meet with people from other parts of the world - to host them in their village. They said they would like to see what these people were like and so I organised this experience.

Those from the 2003 Botswana process came to the village to meet me. Colin and Niall, the traditional healers from Botswana, along with Liz Hosken from the Gaia Foundation, and Tewolde from the Institute of Sustainable Development. We also invited the local authorities to visit the community with us. Would you believe it this was the first time that the local authorities had ever visited this remote community!

After the visit and sharings from the community we continued our dialogue with the local authorities and gave them feedback from the community. One of the challenges that the community raised was that because their settlement is so remote, they had no access to health facilities, and so the levels of mortality in childbirth were high. It was with this information that we were able to work with the local authority and a small health post was established in the area.

The community also said that although they wanted their children to be educated at school, they wanted them to also learn the traditional ways of the land and of the community. By sending their children to school many miles away, their children would be separated from the community and be unable to learn about agriculture and homelife. And so, a school was set up close to the community so that their children could learn both traditional and 'modern' subjects.

How did you help the community to turn around their degraded landscape?

When I first met the community, one of the stories I shared with them was my experience in the Tigray area of Ethiopia. Here, the land had been similarly degraded and there were huge problems of malnutrition and even starvation in extreme cases. The more I talked about the processes which myself and the Institute of Sustainable Development had used to transform this area, the more interested they became. They were very interested to see the Tigray experience for themselves so that they could learn from this success story and feel confidence in what they could potentially achieve.

At the close of 2004, working with the African Biodiversity Network and the Institute for Sustainable Development, we took some of the farmers, both men and women, from Keyarata, Yesor, and Masha to Tigray. We also took a small handful of the district commissioners. We have a saying at the Institute of Sustainable Development that if we organise an experiential learning process it should never be just for the community because the local authorities have a responsibility to care for their communities, and so they should be part of the process too - we should inspire them too!

What were you hoping to achieve through the Tigray learning experience?

The aim of the Tigray learning exchange was to share peer experiences - farmer to farmer, authority to authority. This is a great way to inspire because there is really no one more convincing at demonstrating how change can take place than meeting your equivalent in another district!

We also carried out participatory planning as to how this same programme of environmental rehabilitation could be implemented back in Keyarata and masha areas - how could they take what they saw back in their own areas?

Right after this visit we (ISD) organised a workshop back in the Masha area to give those who visited Tigray a platform to share their experiences with the wider community. Having seen the Tigray experience - a landscape which had been more degraded than theirs, a landscape in which the communities had had to dig for 12metres for ground water, they realised how lucky they were. They had access to water just one metre below the ground. They wept with joy, regret and hope! They realised they too could transform their landscape and restore their environment.

Following this workshop the community and the Wereda district administrators began working together to craft a strategic plan for the next year. The plan set out a number of strategic priorities: Agriculture and rural development; watershed managament and terracing; plantation of forest and fruit trees; beehiving; water harvesting and use; compost making and use; and encouraging 'model' farmers. In 2005 the work really began to change the fortunes of the district by restoring their landscape to its former biodiverse state.

Tell us about some of the ways you went about this landscape restoration and the impact that it has had.

There is a population of around 160,000 in the Wereda district and it covers 28 regions, so we're talking about a large area to be working in, almost 40,000 hectares. From this, we identified 3000 hectares of watershed area in Marsha which we were concerned with and we had covered 62 hectares of this within the first year. What we had done to protect and revive the area was basic soil and water conservation methods.

Because of their improved diets, the cattle are fatter and sell better, produce more milk and so on. Those benefitting from this cut and carry system shifted from just 0.51% to over 40% in just a year!

Introducing a 'cut and carry' system

The first thing that we implemented was terracing. We terraced the area so that the soil would not be able to wash away so easily, and then we planted trees along the terraces, further securing the soil by planting roots to hold it in place. Furthermore, the trees will give nourishment and foliage cover for protection in the long term. Once the forest cover is sufficient, the protected land beneath it regenerates quickly and grasses begin to grow. This enables the farmers to use a 'cut and carry' system to feed their livestock, rather than leading their livestock to the land to graze. Taking their livestock onto the land had led to overgrazing and soil degradation, but now the farmers can simply take what they need to their livestock, and the fodder is far healthier and more nourishing than the dry grasses the cattle were previously foraging from. Because of their improved diets, the cattle are fatter and sell better, produce more milk and so on. The number of people utilising and benefiting from this cut and carry system shifted from just 0.51% to over 40% in just a year!

Increasing forest cover

Before 2005 there was just 6% forest cover in Wereda (or district). We tripled this to 18% in just a year by planting a mixture of indigenous trees, some fruit bearing. Those who planted fruit trees can secure their livelihoods in a very short space of time. They can sell the fruit and with that buy oxon and sheep. Through this work we helped around 18,000 farmers - some with fruit trees, some with other agricultural or livelihood improvements.

Reviving Beekeeping as a traditional livelihood option

Beekeeping is another area which we have improved techniques and livelihoods across the district. Before 2005 there were only 3 modern beehives based on stilts on the ground compared to 2341 traditional log beehives which are hung high up in trees. By 2007 we had increased access to both, meaning there were 452 modern hives, and 6441 traditional. All of the farmers now have beehives as a result! Farmers used to deal with farming activities only but now they couple up their activities - they engage with farming but they also have bees, compost, they do cut and carry system. They have diverse farming and livelihood options - and this is the key to resilience. This has never been so critical as it is now, in the face of climate change.

After all of these processes for capture and storage of water had been implemented, the clean water coverage of the area rose from 0% to over 40%, and even more in some of the small towns whose water systems were affected.

Water harvesting

Water harvesting is an essential aspect of the conservation principles that we introduced to the area. The farmers were not capturing the vital water that was falling in the area, and so it was not only being lost as it was running down the valley, it was also exacerbating the soil erosion.

We introduced the community to simple harvesting techniques and we had a pilot site at Masha elementary school where farmers and development agents came to learn how they could replicate the experience. Methods such as capturing water running off roofs, channelling water which is running down the hillside into water holes and irrigating the land all played a vital part in this process of working with the land. We also dug wells using the farmers' unrivalled knowledge of the landscape. They know exactly where there are underground sources of water; they are the ones who know the stories and subtleties of the land. After all of these processes for capture and storage of water had been implemented, the clean water coverage of the area rose from 0% to over 40%, and even more in some of the small towns whose water systems were affected.

'Model' farmers

We organised an extensive number of compost-making workshops: almost 25,000 households participated or benefitted as a result. One of the ways in which the benefits of many of these methods spread so quickly and so effectively was through our 'model farmer' scheme. The meaning of a 'model' farmer in this context is a farmer who fulfils at least three or more of the activities I have mentioned. For instance, he or she has a compost pit, water-harvesting and separate houses for cattle and humans. This is the minimum requirement - further they can have beehives, poultry, fruit trees and so on. We encouraged model farmers so that they can promote farmer-to-farmer or 'peer-to-peer' promotion. They are the ones who promote their achievements, not us! Other farmers listen to farmers who have experienced the changes in their lifestyle and they become inspired to do the same.

The whole process has been recognised by the Federal Environmental Authority and Ministry of Agriculture in Ethiopia. People from all over the country have been invited to Wereda to see the impressive transformation of both the landscape and livelihoods which has taken place here in such a short space of time.

Over 6000 model farmers were identified across the district between 2005 and 2007 as a result of the process. That's 6000 farmers who had diversified their means of livelihood and contributed to the restoration of their previously degraded landscape. Almost all 1000 farmers managed to send their children to school as a result of this because of the additional income they generated through their improved practices. Almost 2000 farmers who had not had any cattle now have livestock. 104 farmers purchased a mule: Mules are expensive animals in Ethiopia so it's the sign of a rich man! And 60 farmers managed to buy their own mill! They now serve their community with milled flour, not just themselves. This also lifts a huge burden from the women who were the ones who would manually grind the grain. This is a significant change for the women of the community.

The whole process has been recognised by the Federal Environmental Authority and Ministry of Agriculture in Ethiopia. People from all over the country have been invited to the district to see the impressive transformation of both the landscape and livelihoods which has taken place here in such a short space of time.