In December 2019, FututreDAMS welcomed Dr Jenny Hodbod to present ‘Impacts of the Gibe III, Ethiopia: A social-ecological systems approach’.
Jenny Hodbod is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Community Sustainability, Michigan State University, where she studies food systems through a social-ecological resilience lens. Jenny presented findings from the ESRC-DFID funded project “Shifting In/equality Dynamics in Ethiopia: from Research to Application” (SIDERA). The overall goal of SIDERA was to identify pathways towards equitable and sustainable outcomes in terms of poverty reduction, resilience, and peace and security for the 1 million people in the Lower Omo impacted by state-led mega projects and development interventions. SIDERA was particularly focused on poor and marginalized rural communities affected by the Gibe III dam and associated large-scale sugar cultivation. In this presentation, Jenny discussed findings from the work in Nyangatom, Ethiopia, where provisioning ecosystem services (particularly food from croplands, fodder on grazing land, and biomass resources from shrubland) are collapsing, leading to decreases in wealth, but which has not yet been associated with an increase in conflict. She will also explained the participatory approach taken with the project, and the innovative methodology used for integrating indigenous knowledge with remote sensing data to explore ecosystem service dynamics.
Click on the video below to watch the presentation or watch it on Youtube at https://youtu.be/mdKMX15281A.