What is the Horn of Africa Regional Environment Centre?

 The Horn of Africa Regional Environment Centre serves on the one hand as the secretariat for the Network, and on the other hand it facilitates and supports cooperation between member organisations and other environmental actors, including private sector and government, to carry out activities “on the ground”. The Centre has several components, of which the most important ones are the partnership programmes, capacity upgrading and demand driven action research. Concerning the latter, the Centre aims to motivate students in environment related studies by offering practice oriented research options in field situations.

Where is the Horn of Africa Regional Environment Centre located?

 The Horn of Africa Regional Environment Centre is currently located in the new building of the Science Faculty of the Addis Ababa University. After the initial phase, it is envisaged that the Centre will move to the Gullele Botanic Garden. This unique area, one of the last green spaces of the city of Addis Ababa, is currently being developed jointly by the Addis Ababa University and the Municipality of Addis Ababa. In addition to a botanical component, the garden will contain an extensive forest sanctuary of indigenous tree species, a eucalyptus arboretum, a natural history museum and an eco-village. The eco-village will simultaneously promote culture as well as environmentally friendly technologies, such as solar power, mini-hydropower and eco friendly building. The garden will serve both as a conservation, education and recreation area for residents of Addis Ababa and tourists from Addis Ababa as well as from the rest of the Horn of Africa .

What is the Horn of Africa Regional Environment Network?

HoA-REN is a network of members and partners consisting of environmental CBOs, NGOs and higher learning institutes from six countries in the Horn of Africa. Members of the network are endogenous civil society organizations and higher learning and research institutes. Partners of the network consist mainly of non-endogenous (international) organizations working on environmental issues in the region. The network promotes intensive cooperation among and exchange of information and experiences between endogenous NGOs, CBOs, research institutions and universities in The Horn of Africa. The network especially tries to facilitate experience exchange between the various countries in the Horn because we believe that there is so much untapped environmental knowledge in the region which is currently not utilized to its full potential. In addition HoA-REN also partners with government bodies, businesses and international organizations to achieve an optimal impact on the ground.

Thematic Areas

In order to be effective and to focus its efforts, the Center has chosen to work on 3 environmental management themes:

The loss and damage of lakes and wetlands and the streams flowing into them, is a problem that is rampant throughout the region. Factors contributing to this loss are mainly the over-exploitation of water for irrigation, industrial use, etc. leading to rapidly decreasing water levels in rivers and wetlands (lakes and swamps). Additionally groundwater levels are currently decreasing in many parts of the region. Climate change is also impacting the wetlands and lakes in the Horn. However, governments in the region have recognized the need to protect wetlands and efforts are being undertaken to save Ramsar sites like the Sudd in South Sudan, Lake Abijata in the Central Rift Valley in Ethiopia, and Lake Naivasha?? (check) and to develop their (sustainable) tourism potential.

The Horn of Africa, naturally has a rich variety of plant and animal species, due to its topography and diverse climatic conditions. For example Ethiopia is included on the list of the most biodiversity rich countries of the world and also other countries in the region have unique endemic species. Despite this global recognition, biodiversity is threatened throughout the region. Factors contributing to this threat are for instance the expansion of cultivation and grazing, as well as the spread of alien invasive species. Wildlife is vanishing rapidly from most of the region. Except in Kenya, most protected areas in the form of game parks, bird sanctuaries and nature reserves only exist on paper. However, recently the government opf Ethiopia has formulated new legislation around protected areas and wildlife management and several Ethiopian universities are now developing (new) curricula to build human capacity in park and buffer zone management. In Sudan, with peace now gradually returning to the Southern part of the country, the realisation to properly protect and manage the valuable wetlands and wildlife is increasing.

The Horn of Africa faces great problems with regard to severe land degradation. Loss of land is mainly due to extensive deforestation and cultivation and/or grazing of steep highland areas or ecologically fragile lowlands, without applying proper soil and water conservation practices. Water induced soil erosion is visible in too deep and wide gullies on  uncultivated and to a lesser extent also in cultivated land, in extremely shallow soils in much of the remaining farmland and in increasing desertification. The use or sale of dung and crop residue for fuel contributes to lower fertility of soils and decreasing productivity per hectare of land and cubic meter of water.