Managing plant invasion in Afar
Afar Prosopis Management Project
The Afar pastoralists live in one of the most inhospitable places on earth. Grazing areas are scarce with sparse vegetation. In recent years these precious grazing areas have been invaded by a very aggressive and thorny plant called Prosopis (Prosopis juliflora). It was originally introduced by the government to stabilise the soil but it has now spread into the main grazing areas, choking out local plant species and drastically reducing the grazing available to livestock.
Prosopis is very hard to control once established, shading out all plants around it. The Afar, with FARM-Africa's help, have tried various approaches to control Prosopis and now use it to generate income. The most effective is cutting down the tree and ideally uprooting the trunk. The tree can be ground into highly nutritious animal feed, which can be sold to earn much needed income.
FARM-Africa is working directly with communities, helping them find and implement the best ways to clear the prosopis, restore grazing lands and generate income.
How are communities benefiting?
Support to find ways to prevent further expansion of the plant invasion, and to restore invaded grazing areas.
- Control measures are tested to clear the Prosopis including cutting, herbicides, fire and biological methods or combinations.
- Community groups are set up to manage a fund of money and decide on development priorities for their local area. Community members can then apply to these groups to access money to fund small projects such as livestock marketing.
- Products such as animal feed are made from unwanted Prosopis which can be sold.
- FARM-Africa is capturing learning from the project to develop a model of good-practice that we can share with local governments and other NGOs, so that many more communities can benefit from our experiences and adopt the new practices.
Who are we helping?
The project is helping 4,400 households in the region to reduce their poverty by improving grazing land and finding alternative ways to make a living.
Project partners
FARM-Africa is working together with the Pastoralist Livelihood Initiative (PLI) and US Forest Service; Gewane and Amibara Woredas' Pastoral, Agriculture and Rural Development Offices; Afar Pastoral Agriculture and Rural Development Bureau (PARDB); the Ethiopian Institute for Agricultural Research (EIAR); Melka Werer station; Gewane Agricultural Technical Vocational Training College (GATVTC); Afar Pastoral and Agro-Pastoral Research Institute (APARI); and UNEP.
Project Experiences and Evaluations
Experiences on Prosopis Management: Case of Afar Region
Adobe PDF - 1.28mb
Working Papers
14. Scaling-up Success - FARM-Africa\'s new strategy for development
Adobe PDF - 444kb
280 hectares of prosopis cleared in Afar, Ethiopia
Afari communities have been working with FARM-Africa to org
anise themselves into Community Development Committees and have started to clear their land of prosopis. So far, an amazing 280 hectares have been cleared of the highly invasive and thorny plant. In addition to this, three pod crushing mills are up and running in two districts. Read more.
Afar Prosopis Management Project
An experience sharing visit was organised for communities and government staff, introducing them to new technologies which could be used to improve rangeland and control prosopis. As a result of the visit to the Haladege community enclosure sites, the Afar communities have constructed a fence around highly degraded range lands to encourage re-growth of native grass species.
