AMANDA JONES
To attract more tourists, the government recently turned a large part of the Omo Valley into a giant national park, burning some villages and forcing certain tribes off their land. Then it decommissioned much of that parkland and turned it over to massive commercial agricultural operations.
Human Rights Watch says encroaching on tribal land for large-scale agricultural use is illegal, but it’s happening here. And what is being cultivated? Sugar, which needs water and power in what is mostly arid desert. Without involving the tribal people, the government built a huge hydroelectric dam on the Omo River, opening this year. It will divert the water upon which thousands of tribes and their livestock depend, thereby creating the largest irrigated farmland in Ethiopia.
What happens to the tribes that remain, fighting for their traditional lifestyle? From a tourism point of view, they are the most interesting feature of southern Ethiopia. Most likely, over time more villagers will be driven off their land and will probably drift to towns or cities. Our sugar cravings will be sated, but in the end more cultures and languages will be lost. Go now, if you care to see the few extraordinary people who cling to the land.
Source: LA Times
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