While Ethiopia is in the midst of a severe drought, Gergera in the Tigray region in the country’s far north has water, thanks to a revitalised watershed.

Gergera watershed covers 1382 hectares in the kebele (Ethiopia’s smallest administrative unit) of Hayelom in Atsbi-Wonberta district in the eastern zone of Tigray. This was not always so, but the locals took a decision to rehabilitate the environment, and Irish Aid came in and helped.

Thanks to painstaking, complex and multidimensional work that is still taking place; with the consent and help of the community, only cutting and carrying grass to livestock and beekeeping are permissible in this upper catchment.

Members of the community built gabions (mesh cages filled with rocks) to slow the rain water when it courses down the chasm. This was previously too deep to cross, but is now gradually filling as earth builds up behind the structures. The wooded hillsides are also rife with carefully placed beehives.

Where there was once only degradation, now the earth retains rainwater that seeps into the ground and emerges as groundwater in the valley where 1,000 hectares of land is now under small scale irrigation. More tree cover on the hills also means that when surface water does reach the valley, it does so with less destructive velocity.

Recently more than forty individuals, including government ministers, visited the revitalised watershed after signing a memo of understanding to establish a National Agroforestry Platform to support climate-resilient green growth and transformation.

The visit started at the head of the valley where community leaders had gathered to welcome the entourage. Ethiopia’s minister of agriculture and natural resources Eyasu Abraha was visibly moved upon looking around. “I know this place. It was abandoned and untouched. This is very incredible to me,” he said.

Two key lessons learned from this has been that landscape restoration in drylands hinges on water management, and that restoration can create a base for better livelihoods and jobs for youth who formerly left in droves.

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