18 cooperatives kick of incense and gum production

By Wondie Engeda

It is disclosed that 18 cooperatives in Metema and Quara districts kick of incense and gum production recently.

The Metema lowland Biodiversity Project Manager, Desalegn Alemu, noted that practicing the Particpatory Forest Management Aproach has empowered the cooperatives to take full responsibility to protect Waliya Meker as it is named by the localities ( incense and gum) and other natural forest resources available in over 10 thousand hectares of land, and then to enter into the production process. Out of the cooperatives, having 1796 members, 10 of them are organized in Metema, and the rest 8 are in Quara district.

Farmer and Chairperson of the Tach Lemlem Terrar Natural Resource Conservation and Tourism Development Cooperative (NRCTD) in Metema district Ato Getaye Hassen stated that “stopping deforestation, protecting it and then benefting from it” is the objective of the cooperative.

Fruther more, the Advocay Officer of the Biodiversity Program in ORDA, Asmamaw Kassahun, also stressed that reducing and ending the severe deforestation occurred previously in transporting and selling forest resources to the Sudan, expanding illegal farming activities, wild fire and free grazing were pressing issues. For that reason, ORDA has implemented the Biodiversity Project through the financial support of German Agro Action (GAA) since 2009 in the two districts.

In the previous years, few private investors, who had been engaging in producing incense and gum traditionally, severly harmed the resource, restoration nature of the Waliya Kemer tree, the chairperson of the cooperative, Getaye added.

Due to the ecological factors of in the localities of of Metema and Quara and other external reasons, efforts exerted by the Biodiversity Project were fraught with ups and downs, the program advocacy officer commented.

Farmer Getaye Hassen on his part, reported: “the project supported us while we organized in cooperative in order to protect this natural resource and then become benefited from it; so that we have been working hard to let the natural endowment be transferred to our children.”

The Project manager explained that seven cooperatives orgaznzed previously are expected to fetch around 11.2 million Birr by producing over 2300 quintals from 475,363 hundered thousand Waliya Meker trees.

Moreover, the cooperatives are engaging in bee keeping and fattening within the forest they took over; they also produce and sell energy saving stoves.

The Biodiversity Project is expected to be phased out in December, 2013.  Hence, the line offices and all stakeholders should pay attention and make concerned efforts to sustain the Participatory Forest Management approach to expand