“Communication Strategies of the Organization for Rehabilitation and Development in Amhara (ORDA) in Environmental Protection with Reference to Sustainable Community Forest Development in its Operational Areas: The Case of Woldia Akababi Woreda
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2010-09
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Addis Ababa University
Abstract
The seriousness of environmental issues has been in the fore mainly because of its significance to human sustainability. This paper also acknowledges the critical importance of communication strategies in environmental protection particularly in the process of forest resource development and its sustainable management and thus human sustainability. Hence, the paper dominantly dwells on exploring the communication strategies of ORDA: a local non-government organization operating in Amhara region in promoting tree plantation and sustainable community forest development as an integral part of its rural development programme. Development, participatory and social mobilization communication theories comprise the basis for the theoretical part of the paper. Mass, interpersonal and traditional modes of communication also provide the possible theoretical communication approaches of the project. The study mainly centers on addressing the information, education and communication practices ORDA use to create awareness, as well as mobilize the rural community on sustainable community forest development. The challenges in sustainable community forest development (institutional, technical, socio-cultural and others), the communication strategies ORDA adopted to promote sustainable community forest development and the harmony of message contents with the local cultures and contexts are the central issues discussed in the paper. Appropriateness of the approaches and the lessons learned from the programme are also included. Qualitative data collection designs: FGDs, in-depth individual interview and participant observation with a semi-structured guide questions were used to garner data. Visual data were also included in the overall data collected. The research was based on Woldia Akababi Woreda, part of Semien Wollo zone in Amhara Region. According to the theories and research questions used in the study, the data gathered from Tikurwuha and Gebriel rural villages woldia Akababai woreda were presented, discussed and analyzed qualitatively. As a result, it was indicated that traditional communication was most effectively used by ORDA in mobilizing local communities in tree plantation campaigns and equally favored by the communities was interpersonal communication. Sembeties, zikirs, religious venues, social gatherings were some of the centers for the information exchange in the communities. In addition, occasional illegal free grazing, illegal tree cutting from the community forests were some of the socio-cultural challenges in sustainable community forest development that the study discovered. Based on its findings, the paper suggests some options and strategies for optimizing ORDA’s present communication approaches and minimizing their limitations. In other words, it calls for some reappraisals in the methods of communicating environmental messages for effective forest development and conservation programmers among traditional, predominantly non-literate and common resource dependent poor Woldia Akababi Woreda communities and by extension, Amhara as well as Ethiopian tree planters.
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Strategies of the Organization for Rehabilitation and Development in Amhara (