The "Kafa Biodiversity Campaign"

Raising awareness for biodiversity under climate change

The sharing of information and the creation of awareness, as well as environmental education, have been identified as key areas in working towards sustainable development, notably Agenda 21. Local communities have to understand the context of conservation, its impacts, and the role of threatened biodiversity, ecosystem services and the way out. Most importantly, the local community members need to recognize their own role not only in the project’s implementation but also in long-term natural resource management, environmental protection and sustainable development.

In order to preserve old traditions of nature conservation and knowledge and to valuate biodiversity, 20 youth camps in the wild, each lasting at least two days, will be organised for 40 participants at a time, where young people will be able to learn from elders and spiritual leaders in order to become active campaigners for biodiversity themselves.

Moreover, 150 selected youngsters will then be trained as Kafa Biodiversity Campaigners to support a general communication campaign in the communities of the Kafa Biosphere Reserve. Communication, discussions and mutual conflict-resolution are important parts of Ethiopian social life, especially in the rural areas. People often make use of the traditional coffee ceremony, which takes place 2-3 times daily, to exchange and discuss news. The project therefore offers discussion sessions during 1,200 of these coffee ceremonies.

Parallel to this, a biodiversity module will be developed and tested with pupils and teachers of selected pilot schools in order to anchor the matter of biodiversity and climate change in the school curriculum. Four workshops with 50 pupils and teachers will take place. Finally, the module will be kicked off with an official event at the selected pilot schools.

In order to support spiritual leaders at the Kafa Biosphere Reserve in raising the local population's awareness for the values of ecosystems and biodiversity, the project will establish an exchange network, which will also support the Biodiversity Campaigners.

Taking all the activities described above into account, the project plans to reach up to 250,000 inhabitants of the Kafa Biosphere Reserve and to raise their awareness of sustainable resource management and the preservation of biodiversity.

project overview

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