Fausto Podavini, an Italian photographer, took a series of photographs over a period of five years, from 2011 to 2016, of how the construction of the Gibe III Dam will affect Ethiopia’s local communities.

The Omo River near the village of Karo, is home to one of the region’s more endangered indigenous tribes, which is entirely dependent on the river and grows maize, peas, beans, and sorghum using its water, which they pair with a diet of fish from the river.

The Lower Omo Valley in southwest Ethiopia is home to more than 200,000 people who live in villages that dot the landscape along the shores of the mighty Omo River, which meanders for about 800 kilometres and empties into Lake Turkana on the border with Kenya, the world’s largest desert lake.

Construction on the Gilgel Gibe III dam, which cost $1.7 billion (USD) to build and is one of the largest investments made in Africa, started in 2008, and is Africa’s tallest at 240 meters. Its hydroelectric power plant has doubled Ethiopia’s electricity production, but it has also slowed the Omo’s flow, put an end to the twice-yearly flooding that nourished river-bank agricultural land and cattle pastures with deposits of nutrient-rich alluvial sediment, and has also diminished the region’s resilience to drought.

Unfortunately, the dam has negatively impacted the lives of the subsistence farmers, cattle herders, and fishermen, who depended on the Omo’s natural flow to sustain their livelihoods. Thanks to the dam, they now face a severe shortage of food, and cattle herders have been forced to migrate elsewhere to find suitable grazing pastures. The dam also threatens water levels in Lake Turkana, further harming local fishing grounds.

Upon completion of the dam, the Ethiopian government leased large swathes of tribal lands to foreign companies who constructed large, irrigated sugar and cotton plantations; unfortunately the locals are not benefitting from employment at these plantations and factories either as most of the workers are not locals.

Known as the pride of Ethiopia, the massive Gibe III Dam began operating in 2015 and is one of a series of dams on the Omo River, and a fourth is on its way.

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