Too much to bear
Cholbe Chotto has walked the equivalent of twice around the world to collect wood. And she’s still walking. Cholbe is one of 30,000 women who collect and sell wood for fuel across Ethiopia. Half of them work, as she does, on the mountains that surround the country’s capital, Addis Ababa.
Ninety per cent of Ethiopia’s fuel comes from wood. Locally, people buy it to cook the nation’s pancake-like staple dish, injera. But this heavy reliance on wood has resulted in an environmental crisis in Ethiopia. Over the course of the 20th century, the country’s forests went from covering 35 per cent of its land area to covering just three per cent.
The government is now trying to redress this by protecting the forests and instituting a tree-planting scheme. And the signs are promising – during the past decade, Ethiopia’s woodlands have begun to grow back, now covering an estimated nine per cent of the land.
Constant threat
But for Cholbe – and thousands of women like her – this environmental success story is the source of real personal hardship. Their work is now illegal, and government guards protect the forests that they rely on for their living. But the demand for wood for fuel remains, and few other sources of work are available.
Cholbe lives in a small wooden hut in an illegal settlement – known as Cheffe – in the eucalyptus forests outside Addis Ababa. It’s made up of 45 tin-roofed dwellings, many of which have been there for 30 years. But today, Cholbe and her neighbours live under constant threat of eviction.
She has been collecting wood from the mountain for 27 of her 45 years. ‘It’s very, very hard work,’ she says. ‘I’ve been collecting wood since 1984, and I’ve never seen any change in my life.’
During the famine that year, she suffered a stroke after giving birth to twins, who subsequently died. She never regained the use of the right side of her body. ‘I am only able to use one hand to collect the firewood,’ she continues. ‘I use my teeth to tie the bundle sometimes. Because of my stroke, I fall down every day.’
Before dawn, Cholbe and her neighbours head for Entoto Mountain. They walk between ten and 15 kilometres a day to gather wood and take it to market. By mid-afternoon, they’re heading home with bundles that can weigh up to 50 kilograms, in many cases more than the women themselves.
Rush hour
Three o’clock is rush hour on Entoto. Groups of women walk down, bent double with their heavy loads, their feet flattened by years of carrying such weights. They’re passed by small herds of donkeys carrying hay. Buses and cars take locals and visitors up to the ancient churches that draw tourists to the mountain.
Many of the women’s eucalyptus bundles are at least two metres across. Because of her disability, Cholbe can’t carry this much. Instead, she collects wood in a sack, earning five to ten birr (20–40 pence) per day. ‘Sometimes I fast because I don’t have enough food,’ she says. ‘I sacrifice my stomach and I pay the rent because that’s something serious. I may not eat lunch or breakfast because there’s not enough money to live on.’
Poverty isn’t the only hardship suffered by the women. Wood carrying is also dangerous: the women face extortion, violence and even attack by packs of hyenas. The women I met reported that government guards who protect the forest forced them to pay bribes in order to walk on the main road, beating them if they resist. There were also reports of rape and even murder.
Twenty-two-year-old Nani Adanech is a former wood carrier. ‘I began carrying wood when I was a small child and I did it for ten years,’ she says. ‘My hands and legs were always scratched. But the hardest thing was when we were beaten [by the environmental guards]. It would happen every day.’
She recalls one particular beating when she was 16 years old. ‘One day, I was coming down the mountain and there was a man who protected the forest,’ she says. ‘Without any questions, he beat me up. I was sick for three months after that and couldn’t work. My arms were scarred.’
Heavy loads
A local charity, the Women Fuelwood Carriers Project (WFCP), has been working to help women such as Cholbe and Nani in Addis Ababa for the past 20 years. Now, thanks to a US$2million grant from the World Bank, it’s trying to improve the conditions for wood carriers across Ethiopia.
‘The women operate under extremely harsh and often inhuman conditions, having to walk long distances on stiff terrains with heavy loads, often barefoot,’ says the World Bank’s spokesman, Derek Warren. ‘They are subjected to harassment from forest guards and have to pay bribes to be able to bring the branches, leaves and twigs to market… even being exposed to sexual assault, placing them under high HIV/AIDS risk.’
Forty-year-old Amarech Amege walks down the mountain at 3pm with a group of nine neighbours, who range in age from 16 to 50. They walk in groups to avoid trouble with the guards and, when necessary, to pay the bribes collectively.
That morning, she says, they had seen three hyenas on the road. Hyenas are the women’s biggest fear. ‘In the morning, before we go to work, we are full of fear,’ she says. ‘This morning, we found three hyenas, and sometimes they eat us. Some of our friends have been killed by hyenas.’
She says that she and other women feel trapped in the work, having to earn a living for their families. ‘We are praying for God to release us from this work,’ she says. ‘But if we don’t do this job, then our children can’t go to school and we can’t feed them. We don’t profit much from our work. We feel very bad about these people [the guards]. They harass us and beat us and eat our money. Sometimes we go home empty-handed.
‘We only do this because of our children,’ she continues. ‘We don’t want them to work as wood carriers. We want them to go to school. What has happened to us shouldn’t happen to them.’
‘The environmentalist groups, especially the guards, don’t care about the life of the people and they don’t attempt to help them in any way,’ says local community representative Marcos Mesheshe. ‘They attack and harass ordinary people. I feel very bad about this, because it’s tough, unbearable work. I wouldn’t advise my sisters or my wife to do this job.’
Better life
But at the foot of the mountain, there are signs that things may be changing. In the market, a small group of women is pushing a metal cart. They’re a collective, working together for better rates of pay and finding safety in numbers.
The WFCP is providing the women with carts, cargo tricycles and shoulder harnesses. They’re badly needed – Cholbe’s bundle is tied together with blue string; she attaches it to her back with strips of rag.
The charity has also been working to help the wood carriers find alternative incomes, and many of Cheffe’s women now weave baskets, scarves and carpets as a means of making a less back-breaking living. Cholbe’s next-door neighbour, Meselech Alemu, has been a wood carrier for 22 years, but she hopes that she’ll be part of the last generation to do this work. Three of her children work as weavers. The main room of their wooden home is given over to three looms, where the children, aged 15, 18 and 20, are busy producing the traditional white cloth worn by many Ethiopians. ‘I want their life to be better,’ Meselech says. ‘I wouldn’t wish this on my children.’
But there’s a problem. While the demand for wood fuel remains, there will always be women willing to do the work, despite its dangers. ‘For every woman who leaves fuel-wood collection to start a different occupation, there will be another to replace her,’ says Alemayehu Gebrehiwot, a spokeswoman for the WFCP. ‘Fuel-wood trading needs no skills or investment, except in physical effort and time.’
So, she says, the long-term strategy is to get the government and wood carriers ‘to become partners in good forest management’, keeping the forest growing but the women alive. ‘We are advocating fuel-wood-plantation management systems that integrate women fuel carriers rather than confront them,’ she says. But, she admits, it’s a slow process.
So tomorrow, Cholbe will get up before dawn, walk barefoot up the mountain, collect wood, dodge the guards and earn another 40 pence. Her walk around the world shows no sign of ending.
June 2011
Ninety per cent of Ethiopia’s fuel comes from wood. Locally, people buy it to cook the nation’s pancake-like staple dish, injera. But this heavy reliance on wood has resulted in an environmental crisis in Ethiopia. Over the course of the 20th century, the country’s forests went from covering 35 per cent of its land area to covering just three per cent.
The government is now trying to redress this by protecting the forests and instituting a tree-planting scheme. And the signs are promising – during the past decade, Ethiopia’s woodlands have begun to grow back, now covering an estimated nine per cent of the land.
Constant threat
But for Cholbe – and thousands of women like her – this environmental success story is the source of real personal hardship. Their work is now illegal, and government guards protect the forests that they rely on for their living. But the demand for wood for fuel remains, and few other sources of work are available.
Cholbe lives in a small wooden hut in an illegal settlement – known as Cheffe – in the eucalyptus forests outside Addis Ababa. It’s made up of 45 tin-roofed dwellings, many of which have been there for 30 years. But today, Cholbe and her neighbours live under constant threat of eviction.
She has been collecting wood from the mountain for 27 of her 45 years. ‘It’s very, very hard work,’ she says. ‘I’ve been collecting wood since 1984, and I’ve never seen any change in my life.’
During the famine that year, she suffered a stroke after giving birth to twins, who subsequently died. She never regained the use of the right side of her body. ‘I am only able to use one hand to collect the firewood,’ she continues. ‘I use my teeth to tie the bundle sometimes. Because of my stroke, I fall down every day.’
Before dawn, Cholbe and her neighbours head for Entoto Mountain. They walk between ten and 15 kilometres a day to gather wood and take it to market. By mid-afternoon, they’re heading home with bundles that can weigh up to 50 kilograms, in many cases more than the women themselves.
Rush hour
Three o’clock is rush hour on Entoto. Groups of women walk down, bent double with their heavy loads, their feet flattened by years of carrying such weights. They’re passed by small herds of donkeys carrying hay. Buses and cars take locals and visitors up to the ancient churches that draw tourists to the mountain.
Many of the women’s eucalyptus bundles are at least two metres across. Because of her disability, Cholbe can’t carry this much. Instead, she collects wood in a sack, earning five to ten birr (20–40 pence) per day. ‘Sometimes I fast because I don’t have enough food,’ she says. ‘I sacrifice my stomach and I pay the rent because that’s something serious. I may not eat lunch or breakfast because there’s not enough money to live on.’
Poverty isn’t the only hardship suffered by the women. Wood carrying is also dangerous: the women face extortion, violence and even attack by packs of hyenas. The women I met reported that government guards who protect the forest forced them to pay bribes in order to walk on the main road, beating them if they resist. There were also reports of rape and even murder.
Twenty-two-year-old Nani Adanech is a former wood carrier. ‘I began carrying wood when I was a small child and I did it for ten years,’ she says. ‘My hands and legs were always scratched. But the hardest thing was when we were beaten [by the environmental guards]. It would happen every day.’
She recalls one particular beating when she was 16 years old. ‘One day, I was coming down the mountain and there was a man who protected the forest,’ she says. ‘Without any questions, he beat me up. I was sick for three months after that and couldn’t work. My arms were scarred.’
Heavy loads
A local charity, the Women Fuelwood Carriers Project (WFCP), has been working to help women such as Cholbe and Nani in Addis Ababa for the past 20 years. Now, thanks to a US$2million grant from the World Bank, it’s trying to improve the conditions for wood carriers across Ethiopia.
‘The women operate under extremely harsh and often inhuman conditions, having to walk long distances on stiff terrains with heavy loads, often barefoot,’ says the World Bank’s spokesman, Derek Warren. ‘They are subjected to harassment from forest guards and have to pay bribes to be able to bring the branches, leaves and twigs to market… even being exposed to sexual assault, placing them under high HIV/AIDS risk.’
Forty-year-old Amarech Amege walks down the mountain at 3pm with a group of nine neighbours, who range in age from 16 to 50. They walk in groups to avoid trouble with the guards and, when necessary, to pay the bribes collectively.
That morning, she says, they had seen three hyenas on the road. Hyenas are the women’s biggest fear. ‘In the morning, before we go to work, we are full of fear,’ she says. ‘This morning, we found three hyenas, and sometimes they eat us. Some of our friends have been killed by hyenas.’
She says that she and other women feel trapped in the work, having to earn a living for their families. ‘We are praying for God to release us from this work,’ she says. ‘But if we don’t do this job, then our children can’t go to school and we can’t feed them. We don’t profit much from our work. We feel very bad about these people [the guards]. They harass us and beat us and eat our money. Sometimes we go home empty-handed.
‘We only do this because of our children,’ she continues. ‘We don’t want them to work as wood carriers. We want them to go to school. What has happened to us shouldn’t happen to them.’
‘The environmentalist groups, especially the guards, don’t care about the life of the people and they don’t attempt to help them in any way,’ says local community representative Marcos Mesheshe. ‘They attack and harass ordinary people. I feel very bad about this, because it’s tough, unbearable work. I wouldn’t advise my sisters or my wife to do this job.’
Better life
But at the foot of the mountain, there are signs that things may be changing. In the market, a small group of women is pushing a metal cart. They’re a collective, working together for better rates of pay and finding safety in numbers.
The WFCP is providing the women with carts, cargo tricycles and shoulder harnesses. They’re badly needed – Cholbe’s bundle is tied together with blue string; she attaches it to her back with strips of rag.
The charity has also been working to help the wood carriers find alternative incomes, and many of Cheffe’s women now weave baskets, scarves and carpets as a means of making a less back-breaking living. Cholbe’s next-door neighbour, Meselech Alemu, has been a wood carrier for 22 years, but she hopes that she’ll be part of the last generation to do this work. Three of her children work as weavers. The main room of their wooden home is given over to three looms, where the children, aged 15, 18 and 20, are busy producing the traditional white cloth worn by many Ethiopians. ‘I want their life to be better,’ Meselech says. ‘I wouldn’t wish this on my children.’
But there’s a problem. While the demand for wood fuel remains, there will always be women willing to do the work, despite its dangers. ‘For every woman who leaves fuel-wood collection to start a different occupation, there will be another to replace her,’ says Alemayehu Gebrehiwot, a spokeswoman for the WFCP. ‘Fuel-wood trading needs no skills or investment, except in physical effort and time.’
So, she says, the long-term strategy is to get the government and wood carriers ‘to become partners in good forest management’, keeping the forest growing but the women alive. ‘We are advocating fuel-wood-plantation management systems that integrate women fuel carriers rather than confront them,’ she says. But, she admits, it’s a slow process.
So tomorrow, Cholbe will get up before dawn, walk barefoot up the mountain, collect wood, dodge the guards and earn another 40 pence. Her walk around the world shows no sign of ending.
June 2011
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