Eastern Afromontane Biodiversity Hotspot Program

Hello

We have exciting news to share from Ethiopia’s highlands. On 29 October, the UN Environment Programme named our Desa’a project a World Restoration Flagship. Our Ethiopia Country Director, Dr. Aklilu Negussie Mekuria, accepted the award at CBD COP17 in Armenia. 

Thank you for standing with communities and with us in the Eastern Afromontane Biodiversity Hotspot.Your support through GlobalGiving has enabled us to achieve this great honour. 

From our updates you will know that Desa’a is a special place. It is one of Ethiopia’s oldest remaining dry Afromontane forests and the largest in the Tigray and Afar regions. It helps regulate the climate, secures fresh water and keeps soils fertile for millions of people. 

Restoration here only works because families can earn a living without cutting trees. Alongside planting, the project supports beekeeping, vegetables and high-value fruit, and sheep and poultry farming. Solar lights and efficient cookstoves cut the need for firewood, and local farmers and landless families earn income collecting seeds, raising seedlings and building water-saving structures. According to WeForest, more than 23,000 hectares of degraded land are now under restoration, and 1.9 million cubic metres of rainwater are captured each year. 

For Dr. Aklilu, Desa’a is “a promise carried by generations who chose protection over loss.” This award belongs to them, and to everyone like you who has helped along the way. 

To read more about the awards read on here.

Updates from other projects since our last report: 

Desa’a: planting early to beat the drought
With below-normal rainfall forecast, the team started planting earlier than usual, and 24,340 seedlings were already in the ground in Haresaw by late June. Five nurseries are growing 849,927 seedlings of 15 species, and the project is on track to bring around 1,200 more hectares under active management this year. Seventeen women heads of household also received their first sheep.

Wof-Washa: community engagement 
Community engagement is growing strong, 1,122 households joined agroforestry activities, 720 households started raising poultry, and 15 school environment clubs reached more than 2,600 students and neighbours.

Gewocha: harvests are arriving
Farmers who planted fruit and coffee trees with us in earlier years harvested 11,783 kg of bananas, 3,530 kg of coffee and 1,773 kg of avocados in the first half of the year. Working with our partner The Hunger Project, we also completed three spring developments that now give 353 households safe, clean water.

Thank you for making this possible

Your support through GlobalGiving is helping communities restore forests that provide water, food and climate resilience. Together, we are rebuilding landscapes that can sustain both people and nature in the face of a changing climate.