The Gudina Tumsa Foundation (GTF) is dedicated to creating a healthy environment that promotes sustainable and safe living conditions. Since its inception, GTF has been a leader in combating the negative effects of climate change. Its goal is to build community resilience and mitigate climate change in Ethiopia’s extremely hot and semi-arid regions, such as Fantalle.
Many Ethiopian livestock herds live in these drylands, usually held by groups working under traditional strategies of substantial grazing. The Karayu community, for example, relies heavily on animal husbandry through open grazing. This practice is increasingly threatened by current droughts. Climate change and extreme weather events have had a notable impact on Ethiopia’s fodder production, harming the productivity of the livestock sector and the livelihoods of smallholder livestock keepers. Reduced grazing and water pressure weaken livestock animals due to accelerated mortality and reduced milk and meat production, impacting their ability to generate income.
GTF has implemented innovative solutions to meet these challenges. It introduced an adaptive management approach that uses irrigated, drought-tolerant forages to cope with climate variability. This increased the production of meat and milk in the Fantalle district. Over the past two decades, GTF has spearheaded the planting of thousands of trees, yielding phenomenal results. Emphasis was placed on planting Moringa Oleifera, a tree with high medicinal and nutritional value, and Leucaena, a fast-growing, protein-rich tree ideal for animal feed. This initiative not only fights climate change but also improves food security and nutrition.
The GTF’s persistent fight against climate change extends beyond Fantalle. It is actively expanding and 
replicating its successful programs in other regions of Ethiopia. A key factor in the GTF’s achievements has been its commitment to participatory tree planting programs. These programs actively involve women, allowing them to play a crucial role in improving the environment. GTF has successfully mitigated low water levels, attracted rainfall and transformed the landscape by planting multi-purpose indigenous trees adapted to a harsh environment and establishing forage reserves. These efforts have fostered significant ecological progress, with indigenous trees now flourishing in previously degraded plains.
Furthermore, GTF’s approach goes beyond environmental improvements. By involving Karayu women, who were traditionally limited to domestic tasks, GTF empowered them to participate in environmental management. This has had a positive impact on human and animal lives.
Gudina Tumsa’s vision and commitment to development emphasized meeting all aspects of human needs, including physical, intellectual and spiritual well-being. Likewise, GTF’s environmental program reflects this holistic approach, striving to create a future where environmental sustainability goes hand in hand with human and community well-being.
Looking ahead, GTF aims to promote “green cities” by integrating urban agriculture practices that align with local agroecology. This initiative addresses food security issues while simultaneously combating climate change.
The biogas initiative aims to improve the lives and livelihoods of rural households where the Gudina Tumsa Foundation works. It introduces domestic biogas systems, thereby providing many benefits.
Domestic biogas addresses the unsustainable use of firewood and charcoal for cooking and lighting. By replacing these traditional fuels, the GTF project helps conserve forests and reduce air pollution caused by their burning. Biogas production creates a valuable by-product called bio-slurry. This nutrient-rich organic fertilizer improves soil fertility and increases crop yields. Domestic biogas improves the health and living conditions of rural families. Using biogas for cooking reduces indoor air pollution, a major contributor to respiratory problems. This also frees up time spent collecting firewood, allowing people to focus on other activities. These improvements, particularly beneficial for women and children, contribute to a better overall quality of life.
There are also economic benefits at the national level. By reducing dependence on imported fuels like kerosene, biogas allows the country to save foreign exchange. Additionally, by reducing reliance on firewood, it helps slow deforestation and protect vital ecosystems. Finally, biogas is a renewable energy source that produces fewer greenhouse gases than traditional fuels, thus contributing to a cleaner environment.
To sustainably counter the negative impacts of plastic on our environment and health, action is needed on all levels, with major improvements to waste management and recycling practices being pivotal to counter the current trends. Improving the collection and recycling of used plastics can contribute to alleviating plastic pollution in the city. However, many factors impede the efficiency of plastic collection and recycling. Among them are high transportation costs of unbaled plastics, and a lack of space for waste collectors to sort already collected waste are major challenge grouped SMEs faces. Plastic crusher/balling press machine is used for size reduction, an essential step in plastic recycling. Baling PET significantly lowers the costs to transport plastic to processors. At the same time, waste collectors receive a 40% premium when selling baled PET. The manual baling machine will incentivize waste collectors to collect more PET, contributing to cleaner streets while creating additional employment opportunities in the plastic value chain.
Recycling plastic bottles offers a multitude of advantages. It significantly reduces the amount of plastic waste by up to 20 times, contributing to a cleaner environment. Recycling also creates job opportunities for young people and saves on storage space compared to virgin plastic. Furthermore, recycled plastic can be used to make new products, providing additional economic benefits.
Drought Resistant, Multipurpose and Indigenous Tree
The Karayu people are located in a hot, semi-arid region of Ethiopia. They have travelled in search of pastures for their animals, including cattle, camels, goats, and sheep, for millennia. Their movement pattern used to be well organized, with each sub-clan moving within agreed areas and at agreed times, according to the availability of pasture.
Within one generation, however, this pattern of life has become threatened and is now changing. The traditional grazing land available to the Karayu has been much reduced by urban development and the spread of sugarcane plantations. Successive droughts have led to the death of large numbers of cattle, while increased population puts pressure on the land to support more households.
Climate change has resulted in a number of years of prolonged drought. Between 2000 and 2002, the pastoralists lost nearly two-thirds of their livestock as a result of drought. In addition, the pasture was so damaged that there was not enough food for the remaining livestock. This made recovery very slow and resulted in increased malnutrition of children and women. It was vital for them to adapt to long-term climate change. They needed to restore their environment and make changes to their way of life.
For generations, the pastoralists had led a relatively isolated existence with very little access to education or health services. The change was difficult for them. Gudina Tumsa Foundation (GTF) had helped the Karayu to establish their first school and sunk bore-holes to provide drinking water. GTF introduced two simple but critical new ideas to help to sustain the Karayu’s livelihood. They encouraged the planting of drought-resistant, multipurpose, and indigenous trees that could survive very dry conditions and suggested establishing feed reserves by enclosing sections of grazing land.
Karayu communities are pastoralists who traditionally depend on grazing livestock for their livelihood. However, climate change and other factors have led to reduced rainfall and degradation of pastures. This made it difficult for the Karayu to provide for their herds.
The Gudina Tumsa Foundation (GTF) has launched a number of initiatives to help the Karayu adapt to climate change. One of these initiatives was the planting of drought-resistant, multi-purpose and indigenous trees. These trees were chosen for their ability to survive in dry conditions and for their many uses, such as providing food, medicine and building materials. Planting trees helped restore the environment and provide shade to communities.
Another initiative introduced by GTF was the creation of animal feed reserves. These reserves are fenced pasture areas to allow vegetation to regenerate. This provides a source of food for livestock in times of drought. The efforts of Karayu pastoralists to adapt to climate change provide a valuable example for others. They show that it is possible to modify traditional lifestyles to cope with climate change.
