Why a "social" forestry project?  What's the project's background?  What is the aim of the project?  What are the project's main activities?   What is the impact of the border conflict between Ethiopia and Eritrea on the project?   Facts about the project  Project publications

The international boundary between Ethiopia and Eritrea is presently contested.

Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, the world knew Ethiopia as its most persistently famine-prone country. But since the change of government in 1991, agricultural production is increasing, heavy weight state corporations are slowly being privatised and tourism, from a zero base, is already the country's second biggest foreign-exchange earner after coffee.

The Ethiopian high central plateau varies from 2000 to 3000m, with several mountains of over 4000m. It's dissected by numerous river valleys, the most important being the Blue Nile (the Abbay) flowing from Lake Tana, and split diagonally by the Rift Valley which crosses East Africa. Although Ethiopia is relatively close to the equator, the central plateau enjoys a temperate climate, with an average annual temperature of 16°C. Only in the east, towards the Red Sea and west, near Sudan, does it get very hot.

Ethiopia has a population of around 55 million people. Almost 90% of the Ethiopians work on the land. There are more than 80 ethnic groups. The largest of these  (some 40% of the population) are the Oromo. They live in the centre and south of the country, having migrated from further south in the 15th century. The Amhara and Tigrayans, who live in the north and the west, together constitute some 32% of the population [...]. Roughly 40% of the population are Christian, while Muslims predominate in the east and towards the Sudanese border.

Excerpt from "Lonely planet - Africa on a shoestring: Ethiopia" by Miles Roddis (1998)

The flags are from http://fotw.digibel.be/flags/ and the map (modified) from http://www.odci.gov/cia/publications/factbook/index.html.

(c) 1999, DFS Deutsche Forstservice GmbH