Bizuneh, Belete (PhD)Fenta, Ayenew2019-11-132023-11-192019-11-132023-11-192019-06http://etd.aau.edu.et/handle/12345678/20099This dissertation is an environmental history of Mätäkäl, a region located along Ethiopia’s northwest, from the late 1880s to the early 1990s. The late 1880s forms an important watershed in the environmental history of Mätäkäl since it witnessed a major transformation in the demographic structure and environmental features of the region due to the conjuncture of a major cattle epizootic, locust invasion and failure of the rains. These ecological shocks were played out against the backdrop of major political disturbances and local and regional and cross-border warfare that deepened the vulnerability of the population to these disasters. The early 1990s, on the other hand, marked the end of a decade of intensive projects of social and ecological engineering initiated by the Derg socialist government that primariy consisted of the resettlement of tens of thousands of agrarian populations from the southern and northern highlands in the lowlands of Mätäkäl as well as its large-scale socialist agrarian projects that depended on the operation of large state farms. The dissertation demonstrates that in the decades since the end of the Great Famine in 1892 or so the populations of the region reconstituted the livestock and farming economy of the region through trading and raiding. On the other hand, the populations of lowland Matakal and especially the Gumuz and their environment suffered as a result of the slave raids conducted against them to acquire agricultural labor for the highlands of northern Ethiopia. Over the same period, the wildlife sector also witnessed depletion inconsequence of its integration into the global trade in ivory and other wildlife resources and the transformation of the technology of hunting through the easier and widespread acquisition of modern rifles. During the post-1940s period the tempo of environmental change accelerated as a result of the expansion of plow agriculture in the forest zone where livestock herding was extensively practiced as well as in the lowlands which had been the site of mostly shifting agriculture based on the hoe. The dissertation argues that while in the pre-revolution period the major agents of environmental change in Mätäkäl were selfsponsored settlers who were encouraged by local officials to settle in the region, during the post-revolution period the key actors of environmental change were the state and the peasants it settled in the region under the large scale resettlement projects of the Derg government. Keywords: Environment, Society, Disease, Hunting, Agriculture, ResettlementenEnvironmentSocietyDiseaseHuntingAgricultureResettlementThesis