Coal Mining Threatens Ancient Coffee Forest in Ethiopia
Strategic Research Institute
Published on :
22 Jun, 2022, 6:30 am
Mongabay reported that the Yayu forest in southwestern Ethiopia is a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve and one of the worlds only remaining ecosystems in which genetically diverse varietals of arabica coffee grow wild. The forest also sits atop a massive deposit of coal, estimated to be enough to meet Ethiopia’s domestic coal demand for 40 years. With Ethiopia’s government looking to boost the country’s mining industry, a shuttered mining venture in the forest’s buffer zone is set to be revived. Coffee farmers who have carefully managed and protected the forest for generations say a shift to mining will completely change their society, the local economy, and the environment. Sitting high in the hills of southwestern Ethiopia, the thick green forest of Yayu is a haven of biodiversity where Nuradin Aliyi, third-generation wild coffee farmers have lived his whole life intertwined with nature.
This form of traditional coffee management has been practiced for generations by the residents of Yayu, leading to the conservation of the genetic diversity of the forest’s wild arabica coffee. Farmers say they live in harmony with the forest they depend on. They said “We only plant coffee seeds we collect from the forest, and we do not use any inorganic fertilizers.”
Located 1,500 meters above sea level, Yayu’s coffee forest is one of the last and most significant ecosystems where genetically diverse varietals of arabica coffee grow wild. Due to the global interest in preserving the Yayu coffee gene pool, as well as the other indigenous plants, animals and bird species the forest supports, it was designated a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve in 2010.
But in recent years, increasing interest in what lies underneath the forest threatens to overturn this way of life. Around the turn of the century, a massive coal deposit was found in the area, generating huge interest from the government and mining companies. An unpublished 2007 report by a Chinese-based consultancy, China National Complete Plant Import and Export Corporation, estimates the availability of 230 million tonnes of coal in a 5,000-hectare area in and around the forest. This figure would be enough to satisfy Ethiopia’s demand for 40 years.
The first attempt to mine coal in Yayu came in 2012, when a state-owned military-industrial conglomerate launched a massive project in the biosphere’s buffer zone to extract coal and manufacture urea, a key component in fertilizer production. Mired in scandal, the project was shut down in 2017, but not before carving a hole in the forest and damaging its biodiversity.