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Southern Ethiopia (southern + ethiopia)
Selected AbstractsPolicies, Interventions and Institutional Change in Pastoral Resource Management in Borana, Southern EthiopiaDEVELOPMENT POLICY REVIEW, Issue 4 2004Abdul B. Kamara The Borana rangelands of Southern Ethiopia are characterised by extensive livestock production under a communal land-use system that has evolved in response to variable rainfall and uncertain production conditions. However, the last two decades have witnessed an increasing privatisation of rangelands for crop production and private grazing. The results of a quantitative assessment are used to develop a framework for assessing the drivers of change and their long-term implications. It is concluded that certain national policies have resulted in conflicts of authority between traditional and formal systems, creating an avenue for spontaneous enclosures, associated conflicts and decreasing human welfare. [source] Characterizing diversity in composition and pasting properties of tuber flour in yam germplasm (Dioscorea spp.) from Southern EthiopiaJOURNAL OF THE SCIENCE OF FOOD AND AGRICULTURE, Issue 10 2008Muluneh Tamiru Abstract BACKGROUND: Studies on composition and functional properties in germplasm collections are important in determining their diversity and suitability for food and non-food applications. The diversity in 65 yam accessions collected from Southern Ethiopia and belonging largely to a yet unknown species and to Dioscorea bulbifera L. (aerial yam) was analyzed based on protein, starch and amylose contents, and pasting properties of tuber flour, applying descriptive and multivariate statistics. RESULT: Starch content varied from 65.2% to 76.6% dry matter, while the protein content range was 6.4,13.4% dry matter. Amylose represented between 7.1% and 30.6% of the starch fraction, and was negatively correlated (P < 0.01) with starch content. UPGMA clustering and principal component analysis clearly distinguished aerial yam from those accessions with underground tubers. The first four principal components accounted for 78% of the total variability, and were highly correlated with pasting parameters. CONCLUSION: The extent of diversity detected among accessions studied showed scope for improving the crop through selection of landraces with desirable characteristics. Similar investigations on tubers grown under different environmental conditions and additional data on physicochemical properties of isolated starch will be useful in evaluating the potential of yam for food and non-food applications. Copyright © 2008 Society of Chemical Industry [source] The effect of development interventions on the use of indigenous range management strategies in the Borana Lowlands in EthiopiaLAND DEGRADATION AND DEVELOPMENT, Issue 4 2008S. Homann Abstract In the last three decades, the Borana rangelands of Southern Ethiopia have been deteriorating due to unsustainable utilization. This paper analyses the changes in indigenous range management among the Borana pastoralists and the role of development interventions. The fieldwork was carried out during 2000,2002, following a severe drought. Two locations, Dida Hara and Web, that once were part of a large grazing system with seasonally distinct herd movements, experienced differences in development interventions. Indigenous range management strategies and pastoralists' current use of key strategies before and after the last drought were compared based on pastoralists' information about land-use change collected through participatory appraisals, land-use mapping, and household surveys. Priorities for future interventions were discussed in multi-stakeholder workshops. Water development in rainy season grazing areas such as Dida Hara has resulted in year-round grazing and expansion of permanent encampments. This has affected the traditional dry-season areas like Web because it interrupted the organization of rangeland management. Herd mobility became less applicable and traditional land-use classifications have lost their function in range management. The introduction of government-imposed administration disturbed the indigenous institutional networks and negotiation procedures for controlled herd movements. Aggravated by human population growth, this reinforces a higher and more permanent grazing pressure, leading to the deterioration of rangelands. Despite the disturbance of pastoralists' range management practices considerable technical and management capabilities prevail. Innovative development approaches should integrate indigeneous knowledge-based (IK) strategies and formal legislation, but this requires strong external support and official recognition from the Ethiopian Government. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source] Governmentality and the Family: Neoliberal Choices and Emergent Kin Relations in Southern EthiopiaAMERICAN ANTHROPOLOGIST, Issue 1 2009JAMES ELLISON ABSTRACT, Rather than strictly local expressions of relatedness, kinship in southern Ethiopia has long been entangled with broad political and economic forces as people negotiate relations with each other, past generations, and the state. Accompanying government reforms in the 1990s, idioms of individualism and choice have circulated in transnational and national neoliberal discourses of development, rights, and economics. People in southern Ethiopia who use ideologies of ascribed social statuses to define local social hierarchies have employed these discourses in reshaping relatedness through an expansive trade association, which is referred to as a family and works through kinship principles of descent and generation. Drawing from recent scholarship on kinship and new reproductive technologies, I argue that, through mobile knowledges in neoliberal contexts, people choose this family and its lineage founder, transforming descent relations and land-based ideologies. These choices represent the workings of neoliberal governmentality in altering cultural relations of power and inequality. [Keywords:,kinship, neoliberalism, governmentality, hereditary status groups, Ethiopia] [source] Bush encroachment control demonstrations in southern Ethiopia: 1.AFRICAN JOURNAL OF ECOLOGY, Issue 1 2009Woody species survival strategies with implications for herder land management First page of article [source] Could insecticide-treated cattle reduce Afrotropical malaria transmission?MEDICAL AND VETERINARY ENTOMOLOGY, Issue 4 2004Effects of deltamethrin-treated Zebu on Anopheles arabiensis behaviour, survival in Ethiopia Abstract.,Anopheles arabiensis Patton (Diptera: Culicidae) is the most widespread vector of malaria in the Afrotropical Region. Because An. arabiensis feeds readily on cattle as well as humans, the insecticide-treatment of cattle , as employed to control tsetse (Diptera: Glossinidae) and ticks (Acari: Ixodidae) , might simultaneously affect the malaria vectorial capacity of this mosquito. Therefore, we conducted field experiments in southern Ethiopia to establish whether Zebu cattle (Bos indicus L.) treated with a pour-on pyrethroid formulation of 1% deltamethrin, widely used to control ticks and tsetse, would be effective against An. arabiensis or cause the female mosquitoes to feed more frequently on humans, due to behavioural avoidance of insecticide-treated cattle. Contact bioassays (3 min exposure) showed that the insecticide remained effective for about 1 month (kill rate > 50%) against mosquitoes feeding on the flanks of treated cattle. A novel behavioural assay demonstrated that An. arabiensis readily fed on insecticide-treated cattle and were not deflected to human hosts in the presence of treated cattle. DNA-fingerprinting of bloodmeals revealed that An. arabiensis naturally feeds most frequently on older animals, consistent with the established practice of applying insecticide only to older cattle, while allowing younger untreated animals to gain immunity against infections transmitted by ticks. These encouraging results were tempered by finding that > 90% of An. arabiensis, An. pharoensis and An. tenebrosus females feed on the legs of cattle, farthest from the site of pour-on application along the animal's back and where the treatment may be least residual due to weathering. Observations of mosquitoes feeding naturally on insecticide-treated cattle showed that the majority of wild female anophelines alighted on the host animal for less than 1 min to feed, with significantly shorter mean duration of feeding bouts on insecticide-treated animals, and the effective life of the insecticide was only 1 week. Thus the monthly application of deltamethrin to cattle, typically used to control tsetse and ticks, is unlikely to be effective against An. arabiensis populations or their vectorial capacity. Even so, it seems likely that far greater impact on anopheline mosquitoes could be achieved by applying insecticide selectively to the legs of cattle. [source] Governmentality and the Family: Neoliberal Choices and Emergent Kin Relations in Southern EthiopiaAMERICAN ANTHROPOLOGIST, Issue 1 2009JAMES ELLISON ABSTRACT, Rather than strictly local expressions of relatedness, kinship in southern Ethiopia has long been entangled with broad political and economic forces as people negotiate relations with each other, past generations, and the state. Accompanying government reforms in the 1990s, idioms of individualism and choice have circulated in transnational and national neoliberal discourses of development, rights, and economics. People in southern Ethiopia who use ideologies of ascribed social statuses to define local social hierarchies have employed these discourses in reshaping relatedness through an expansive trade association, which is referred to as a family and works through kinship principles of descent and generation. Drawing from recent scholarship on kinship and new reproductive technologies, I argue that, through mobile knowledges in neoliberal contexts, people choose this family and its lineage founder, transforming descent relations and land-based ideologies. These choices represent the workings of neoliberal governmentality in altering cultural relations of power and inequality. [Keywords:,kinship, neoliberalism, governmentality, hereditary status groups, Ethiopia] [source] Stochastic wealth dynamics and risk management among a poor population,THE ECONOMIC JOURNAL, Issue 498 2004Travis J. Lybbert We use herd history data collected among pastoralists in southern Ethiopia to study stochastic wealth dynamics among a poor population. Although covariate rainfall shocks plainly matter, household-specific factors, including own herd size, account for most observed variability in wealth dynamics. We find no support for the tragedy of the commons hypothesis. Past studies may have conflated costly self-insurance with stocking rate externalities. Biophysical shocks move households between multiple dynamic wealth equilibria , the lowest suggesting a poverty trap , according to nonconvex path dynamics. These findings have broad implications for development and relief strategies among a poor population vulnerable to climatic shocks. [source] Rangeland degradation is poised to cause Africa's first recorded avian extinctionANIMAL CONSERVATION, Issue 3 2009C. N. Spottiswoode Abstract Rangeland degradation by livestock threatens several restricted-range species, but is largely overlooked by conservation biologists. The Sidamo lark Heteromirafra sidamoensis, confined to the Liben Plain grassland in southern Ethiopia, is critically endangered by bush encroachment, permanent settlement and agricultural conversion. Its global range was previously estimated at 760 km2, but in 2007,2008 available habitat covered<35 km2. Density estimates from multi-model inference analysis of distance transect data provided a global population estimate of 90,256 adults (possibly with a serious sex-ratio bias towards males). Logistic regression models of habitat selection showed that males preferentially occurred in areas of grassland with greater cover of medium-length grass (5,15 cm), less cover of bare ground and fewer bushes. Habitat transects extending outward from its core range revealed massive and rapid bush encroachment, corroborating information from semi-structured interviews. The survival of both local Borana pastoralism and this species , mainland Africa's likeliest first avian extinction , depends on restoring seasonal patterns of grazing, resisting agricultural conversion of grasslands, reversing fire suppression policies and clearing bush. [source] | |||||||||||||