10.57647/j.jrs.2025.1503.22

Arid land degradation issues in Ethiopia: the case of the Borana and afar rangeland systems: A review

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  • Belay Zerga*1,
  1. Department of Natural Resources Management, College of Agriculture and Natural Resources, Wolkite University, Wolkite, Ethiopia

Received: 2024-01-01

Revised: 2024-04-09

Accepted: 2024-08-22

Published in Issue 2025-07-20

Copyright (c) 2025 Belay Zerga (Author)

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

How to Cite

Zerga, B. (2025). Arid land degradation issues in Ethiopia: the case of the Borana and afar rangeland systems: A review. Journal of Rangeland Science, 15(3). https://doi.org/10.57647/j.jrs.2025.1503.22
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Abstract

The unique feature of arid and semi-arid environments is that there is huge resource variability because of the climatic variation. Pastoralists are ecosystem experts and systematically live in the environment for a very long period. These savanna ecosystems are considered as a range of land for livestock and wild animals. Similar to other East African countries, most of Ethiopia is situated in an arid and semi-arid environment and there are pastoralists in this part of the country. There are approximately 10 million pastoralists in Ethiopia who make up almost 14% of the total population. Coming from at least 29 different nations and nationalities, Ethiopian pastoralists live in more than 133 woredas in seven National Regional States. Somali, Afar, and Oromo pastoralists are the majority in their states and constitute 87% of the total pastoralist population. Pastoral communities in the Southern part of Ethiopia (South Omo and Bench-Maji Zones), Benishangul-Gumuz, Dire Dewa, and Gambella make up the remainder. In the Borana and Afar rangelands of Ethiopia, bush encroachment has been expanding over the last four decades. The underlying causes for the bush encroachment are the breakdown of traditional land use practices (mainly mobility), expansion of farming in the rangelands, decentralization, and yearly grazing following the creation of permanent water points in the previous dry season grazing rangelands, and prohibition of range fire. Rangeland degradation has been occurred because of overgrazing, which may have altered the ecosystem in favor of the annual species and the extinction of highly palatable perennial species. Changes in soil surface conditions, notably compaction through trampling by livestock, lead to deterioration in soil-plant-water relationships and reduced germination rate, particularly of the palatable species. There are different options to restore such a degraded ecosystem, but the use of prescribed fire and acceptance of their customary resource management seems feasible in these areas.

Keywords

  • Rangelands,
  • Arid land degradation,
  • Bush encroachment,
  • Prosopis juliflora,
  • Restoration,
  • Borana,
  • Afar
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