Abstract:
Abstract
Environmental changes occurring throughout the globe are challenging the lives of many people. Nature
is so now degraded at alarming rate that peoples of the world are getting severe food shortage and many
o!'-er problems. Different disciplines have therefore been attracted to understand the causes and the
'/Jossible consequences of environmental changes. Among many, Environmental History, which was
emerged during the 1960s in United States of America, has tried to study the interaction of human beings
with the physical environment and with other living organisms in the ecosystem. As part of local and
global issue, the study therefore was about the environmental history of Gonca Siso Enase in the
twentieth century. More specifically, human interactions to the environment and their attitude towards
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nature are the pillars in narrating the patterns of environmental changes occurred in the Warada for the
last hundred years. The Data were collected from informants who experienced the changes and the
situation via semi structured interview and focused group discussion. The land uses and land cover
changes of the 1972, the 1985, and the 1991 were incorporated into the study. Another source of data was
archives which clearjy showed the governments' reactions to the changes transpired in the district.
Ground truth checking system was then held on the study area. All data collected from these sources were
discussed under different themes. The study exclusively employed a phenomenological qualitative
research design in investigating the changes in the study area. It portrays the human 'interaction with the
environment and thus how the people of Gonca altered the environment and the influence of the
envin'11ent on the lives of them. The results show that major environmental changes occurred during the
the area.
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imperial regimes. The communal land ownership which deprived the masses from being invested on their
lands, and poor perception of the people towards nature which were emanated from illiterateness were
the casuals of such changes. Hence, the government failed to educate the society how to protect nature
rather it wrote different letters which could not enforce the people to take actions and to love the nature
• they lived on. That is why the Warada 's forests were dramatically transformed into croplands, settlement,
grazing fields within hundred years. But now all the land cover changes were converted into settlement
and crop lands at the expense of very little forest and grazing land coverage. This environmental change
brought different human and animal diseases during imperial regimes. Rinderpest and anthrax were the
dominant diseases that swept the cattle population during the 1950s and 1960s. Malaria, typhoid and
typhus were also serious diseases that took the lives of many people and obstructed agricultural practices.
Such diseases continued suffering the people until the end of the last century. Another environmental born
consequences observed in the area was locust infestation. A swarm of locust during the imperial and
Darg regimes demolished many acres of crops. However, from any other government, Darg was trying to
control the locust invasion with mechanized technology. Heavy soil erosion and degradation have been a
phenomenon in the area and it could be the causes of peasants' migration to other parts of the country.
The land, especially areas lie on the Abay Basin, has been so degraded that farmers have hardly got ·
-.. problems of cultivating crops. As a result, different governmental and non-governmental organizations
have intervened and worked for rehabilitating the region. For such environmental degradation both Darg
and the current government resettled the peasants to other areas. These all changes were therefore
resulted from the unsustainable agricultural practices which have been practiced since human settled in
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