Environmental Management System: During Imperial, Derge and EPRDF Periods in Ethiopia: Review Paper

Abstract

Before World War II was considered as “Dark Age” of environment in Ethiopia. Even if some researcher identified the awareness of environment was during the Minlik II regime with the growing fuel wood crisis and became public officials increasingly convinced of the need for state protection of the country’s forests and forest resources. Greater emphasis given after www II during the 1960’s.  It is deemed to be the result of misguided and unregulated modification of the Ethiopian environment, in particular the vegetation, soils and natural ecological processes, increased human and animal population, has led to their fast depletion and serious environmental degradation. And has been and still is beyond their "self-replicating capacity".This paper briefly reviews the environmental management during imperial, Derge and the current periods in line with the environmental concerns and policies and economy. Ethiopian environmental concerns in the 20^th century were poor. This was due to donor driven environmental advisees and policies, the ignorance of the indigenous knowledge of the local community, top –down approach of the policies and legislation without the consent of the farmers and the community at large. The imperial period famine, the food for work approach of the Derg, villegization, collectivization and for example exacerbates the environmental degradation. There has been no land tenure security in Ethiopia. However, the current Ethiopian government undertakes the land registration that maximizes the user’s right. After Kyoto protocol, Ethiopia explicitly recognizes that environment is a vital and important pillar of sustainable development and incorporates in the development planning like the CRGE documents (which emphasis on mitigation than adaptation) to reduce the effects of climate change on water, forests, climate change, and biodiversity conservation for sustainable use.  In addition,  the economic appraisal of development projects, the costs of environmental and natural resource benefits forgone as a result of the projects' activities are started to  included in the calculations through  environment policy and environmental impact assessment  of for development projects and enacted policy, laws and establish institution to the managements of environments. However, the concern of environmental management is global and unanimous agreement among developed and developing countries.

Keywords: Environment Management System, Environmental Paradigm, Climate Change, Adaptation, Mitigation, CRGE, Ethiopia