In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

68 CHAPTER 5 INTRODUCTION A griculture forms the basis of the Ethiopian economy, providing roughly 42 per cent of GDP,1 and it is the primary source of livelihood for the overwhelming majority of the population. The nature of Ethiopia’s agriculture is primarily rain-fed, hence production is sensitive to fluctuations in rainfall,2 and also to other climatic stresses.3 Drought is a recurrent phenomenon in many parts of the country, resulting in a sharp reduction of agricultural output.4 Besides its economic brunt, drought may also have a profound social impact.5 Large areas of Ethiopia experience high seasonal rainfall variability6 and a number of regions in the country are prone to drought.7 While assessing vulnerability and poverty in Africa,8 Orindi et al., found Ethiopia to be one of the most vulnerable countries to climate change with the least capacity to respond. Frequent droughts in the highlands and floods in the lowlands have become major sources of risk for the country. Ethiopia’s high level of vulnerability is linked to factors that include extreme poverty , natural disasters,9 reliance on natural resources10 , high sensitivity of the socio economic systems to climate variability,11 a limited financial and institutional capacity to adapt,12 a high population growth rate,13 and lack of an effective safety net.14 One should note, however, that the country has been able to develop large scale safety net programs. But as emphasized by Ziervogel et al., livelihood systems of the rural poor remain largely insecure when poverty reduction efforts are undermined by high levels of vulnerability and environmental stresses.15 Over the course of human history, vulnerable individuals and communities have devised mechanisms to adapt to climate change and variability.16 Despite various constraints (including lack of tailored climate forecasts) rural communities in many parts of Ethiopia have developed the knowledge Application of traditional knowledge in predicting and adapting to climate Indicatorsofchangeandcopingstrategiesforrural communitiesinthecentralriftvalleyofEthiopia Yoseph Melka, Habtemariam Kassa and Ute Schmiedel APPLICATION OF TRADITIONAL KNOWLEDGE IN PREDICTING AND ADAPTING TO CLIMATE 69 and practices to cope with shocks and adverse environmental problems and extremes. Broadly speaking, adaptation methods are those strategies that enable an individual or community to cope with or adjust to the impact of climate variability and change.17 Such activities range from simple traditional measures to the use of high level climate smart technologies. The majority of the rural poor rely heavily on the former as these are accessible to them and are applicable locally. In doing so, rural communities do not depend on a single technique; rather, they employ various adaptation techniques at times to tackle specific livelihood and climatic related problems. In the Central Rift Valley of Ethiopia, farmers have been using several adaptation strategies that enabled them to reduce their vulnerability to the negative impact of climate variability and extremes. However, indications are that the current variability and change in climate, coupled with other stresses (such as declining farm size and shrinkage of grazing areas) result in some traditional strategies being unable to help them cope with these changes. Historically, farming communities in Ethiopia remained isolated and poorly supported; hence they rarely accessed and incorporated scientific climate forecasts in their farming decisions. Rather, they relied on traditional knowledge in managing risk and reducing their vulnerability to both climatic and non-climatic stresses. Traditional knowledge is a term often used to describe long-standing traditions, practices and environmental knowledge of communities (often indigenous) in specific areas or regions, which are commonly passed down to younger generations (primarily orally). It illustrates people’s immense knowledge of their environment obtained from living long periods close to nature, continuously learning from each other and from the richness and complex relationships in ecosystems. Although the importance of traditional knowledge has been gaining global recognition , little has been done to incorporate this knowledge into climate change adaptation strategies, particularly in Ethiopia. On the other hand, access to dependable weather forecast is one of the important prerequisites for designing effective adaptation strategies. Efforts to integrate traditional knowledge into climate change policies have shown a promising result in designing adaptation strategies that are cost-effective, participatory and sustainable.18 However, it is recommended that care should be taken to incorporate it in such a way that it complements, rather than competes, with scientific knowledge.19 Against this background, this chapter is based on a study that was carried out to understand and document the traditional indicators and local level measures...

Share