TEighty-five percent of Ethiopia’s population lives in rural areas. Agriculture
employs over four-fifths of the labor force and accounts for 90 percent of national
export earnings (World Bank 2004). To make way for agriculture, the forest
cover has been reduced from about 40 percent a century ago to 3 percent today
with human activities extending to slopes as steep as 16 degrees (Badege
2001). Deforestation has been exacerbated by lack of land reform and insecurity
of land-holdings which hinders effective stewardship of soil resources (Badege
2001; Pender 2006). Historically, among the various mechanisms of adjustment
to deterioration in the physical environment and/or a diminishing resource-base
has been voluntary out-migration including the often quoted Oromo migration of
the 16th century (Ofcansky and Berry 1991). However, lack of land, meaningful
land reform, insecurity of holdings, and the fear of losing one’s plot, no matter
how small, makes out-migration all but impossible at the present time (Desalegn
1999).