Update on Mosha church forest wall and expansion

Below is an update from Alemayehu on the Mosha church forest in Ethiopia:

Mosha is a 7 ha forest which was surrounded by degraded grazing land. For the last years the degradation level of the surrounding land has become more serious and the grazing effect has been intense on the forest. And our original plan was to rescue this forest by fencing all round the 7 ha. However more opportunity is created in the process of discussing the issue with the community and local government official.

The surrounding 10 ha degraded grazing land which used to be communal grazing land cannot be continued like before and instead some soil conservation physical structure should be done on it and designated as future rehabilitation forest site as part of the church forest. This meant the community contributed free labour to do the conservation work and now the land is transferred to the church to be part of the forest. This has created a wide buffer area and potential of expanding the forest. Accordingly we shifted our strategy from fencing all around to only focusing on the vulnerable side where many people live near by.

So we are now:
1. Mosha church forest has got more land and in future will increase from 7 to 17 ha
2. We have finished constructing nearly 1.1 km stone wall and seems all over Mosha project is finished.