Proceedings of the Second Awareness Creation Workshop on Wetlands in the Amhara Region

Abstract

Introduction Ethio Wetlands and Natural Resources Association is a not-for-profit non-governmental organization established in the year 2000 as an extension of Ethiopian Wetlands Research Programme (EWRP), which was a three-year project implemented in Illubabor Zone of the Oromia Region. Since its establishment the organization is disseminating the findings of EWRP, involved in investigation and documentation of information on wetlands, capacity building and awareness raising on wetlands and implementing catchment-based wetland management projects. The organization has currently established linkage with various national and international institutions. It has implemented and is implementing different research, capacity building and development projects in Oromia, Amhara and Southern Ethiopian Nation, Nationalities and Peoples Regional States. The organization conducted the first awareness creation workshop on wetlands in Amhara region in January 2001, which the participants identified key activities, which need to be pursued in the immediate future. Some of these are further awareness raising works at different level, conducting a wetland survey in the region, research work on wetlands to come up with recommendation for sustainable use, networking and capacity building through training and production and distribution of extension materials, policy review and development, institutional responsibility allocation, identification of sources of technical expertise and project development for wetland management. In the past few years the Ethio Wetlands and Natural Resources Association has been working towards the achievement of the activities proposed at the first regional awareness creation workshop. With funding from the Finland Embassy and the Global Mechanism of the Convention to Combat Desertification (GM-CCD), the organization is implementing a pilot project for demonstrating and testing catchment and community based sustainable wetland management and rehabilitation in three weredas of Amhara region namely Dangla, Bahar Dar Zuria Fogera. This project involves a series of inter-linked activity components, some of which are addressing activities proposed in the first regional awareness creation workshop. The five major activities components of the project are: o Undertaking participatory studies on wetlands and wetland resources at selected sites, o Undertaking awareness creation conferences to disseminate important information on wetlands to local government authorities and employees as well as farming communities, o Dissemination of wetland information via the circulation of extension booklets and leaflets, o Training of farmers, development agents and experts to build capacity within the public and government institutions for improved wetland management and o Establishment and running of pilot demonstration sites in three catchments for demonstrating integrated catchment and community-based wetland management practices through community participation. This workshop is organized in line with the above activity components to raise awareness on wetlands with local government authorities and employees. Twenty three people drawn from different offices of the three weredas (Fogera, Dangela and Bahar Dar Zuria), the Agriculture and Rural Development offices of south Gonder, Awi and West Gojjam zones and regional Bureau of Agriculture and Rural Development, the Rural Land Administration and Use and Environmental Protection Authority, Amhara Research Center and USAID are attended the workshop. Number of participants is lower than expected due to overlapping of the workshop with unexpected meetings of government officials, even though it was tried to change the date of the workshop several times to avoid such type of overlapping. This proceeding contains the papers presented at the workshop and discussions made by the workshop participants on wetland issues.