Along with some great moments, came some bad.

Here are some of the “worst” things about our Ethiopia expedition:

1. Car trouble
2. Hornbill-hitting-windscreen (will send from laptop)
3. Eating ONLY with the right hand (because the left is used for something else)
4. Watching where you step….. the church forest ground abounds with dung-beetle habitat
5. Eucalpyt plantings that ultimately suck down the water table, and displace native trees
6. Student housing for clergy disciples

As I muse about our last 3 weeks in Ethiopia, and count my blessings for toasted cheese sandwiches, sidewalks, books, and cotton sheets on my bed in America, I think about the incredible experiences of working in Ethiopia.

The best moments:

1. Our amazing team of scientists and citizens
2. the church leadership, with their vision to conserve their forests
3. the kids of Ethiopia, who shared our love for the small creatures of our planet
4. The sobering lessons learned from watching women and families in Ethiopia, and how important it is to empower moms and children in emerging countries

Here are a few of the critters we were surveying — got 135 birds, but all but about 11 were outside the church forests.

We got over 3000 insects as mentioned earlier, with a large portion Diptera and also Coleoptera. Of note many of the Coleoptera tend to be dung beetles (exact counts to follow) which may indicate the lack of modern hygiene within the church forests for ablutions. We are advocating for a toilet block at Zhara, since 120 live within this gorgeous green site, but there are no established toilet blocks. This patterns may shift the biodiversity of the insect fauna, as well as have other marked impacts on human health. We plan to return in the dry season to more carefully student the herbivores in the canopy, during flowering seasons.

We are in our final phases of the Ethiopia expedition, with over 3000 insects logged by various field methods, over 1000-person hours of field time, and several thousand hours of field work yet to process back in our labs and libraries at home institutions. The project was overwhelming and inspirational. We are humbled by the children’s enthusiasm for learning their natural history, and awestruck by the general lack of any knowledge about the local natural history. But we are heartened by the fact that local clergy have initiated a stone fence around the Zhara church forest, and hope to figure out creative solutions for funding labor, stone transport, and gates in the near future — for many church forests, not just for one.

On our last day, we drove to Lalibela to view the most unique church of all Ethiopia. Forged from one massive rock formation, Lalibela defeats all conceivable means of both architectural and construction technologies. How did Ethiopians in the 1200s carve hard rock into 13 churches? And how did they cart tools and food and shelter up an amazing mountain to execute this project? And what were the tools of the trade? And how do you design down from the soil surface into bedrock, and design amazing cathedral structures? It was overwhelming.

Church of Saint George, Lalibela facts (Source: Wikipedia):

• Built in the early thirteenth century
• Most well known and last built of the eleven churches in the Lalibela area
• Has been referred to as the “Eighth Wonder of the World”
• The dimensions of the complex are 25 meters by 25 meters by 30 meters

Some various photos from our activities in the field here in Ethiopia:

Church forest near Debre Tabor, Ethiopia. Google Earth 3D and Google Maps 2D view:

Short pictorial guide to our first “base camp”, Hotel Ghion, in the town of Bahir Dar in Ethiopia:

In the northeastern highlands of Ethiopia, agriculture and encroaching desert has replaced most of the original dry Afro-montane forests. These remaining patches of forest usually surround the Ethipian Orthodox Tewahido churches, since they are considered sacred and spiritual. Some of these church forests are over 1500 years old, and their size ranges from 3 acres to 300 hectares. When travelers see green forests on the distant horizon in Ethiopia, they can be certain to find a church. The words “debr” or “geddam” are terms for these churches surrounded by trees. Dr. Alemayehu Wassie Eshete, our local host in Ethiopia, wrote his PhD thesis on the church forests of Ethiopia, with a special focus on identifying the trees found. He recognized that the church forests provide important ecosystem services (meaning they provide benefits from their natural systems that would be very expensive if humans had to artificially replicate them). Such ecosystem services provided by the Ethiopian church forests include:

1. home for insects that provide the services of pollination and production of honey
2. source of fresh water, since many fresh water springs are situated within the boundaries of the church forest
3. genetic library, housing the native seed sources for Ethiopian plants and many wildlife
4. spiritual and religious sanctuary
5. Shade and soil conservation

Locals harvest timber in the church forests as well as plant coffee and non-native, fast-growing trees such as eucalypt, resulting in decline of the native trees

Currently, the forest boundaries are eroding due to subtle pressure by the surrounding agriculture. Farmers have a high respect for the church, but inadvertently trim back the tree boundaries, especially since the trees often die back around the edges due to drought and exposure. The temptation to take some timber, and/or plow a few more rows, results in serious shrinkage of the church forests, to the extent that some are predicted to disappear in the next decade.

Thanks to National Geographic funding, we hope to survey the insect biodiversity of these forests. Even more important, we hope to initiate, with Alemayehu’s help, education of the children about the pollinators found in their church forests. This will not necessarily halt the shrinkage of the forests, but such education may give the next generation more incentive to conserve these precious circles of green.

Lake Tana at dawn, just offshore from Bahir Dar

We will be based in Bahir Dar, on the edge of Lake Tana. This region boasts thousands of church forests, but we will focus on just a few as a pilot study to survey their ants, beetles, canopy insect life, pollinators, and tardigrades (translation: water bears, which are microscopic critters found in droplets of water almost throughout the world). We hope to not only create the first-ever lists of arthropod biodiversity in these church forests, but also educate the local villagers (including the clergy) about the wealth of creatures who depend upon these forests for their survival. In addition, the importance of pollinators and fresh water and other ecosystem services can not be underestimated.

Island church forests in Lake Tana

On Saturday, Ethiopians walk to market, to trade goods and to have social interaction. But for many , the walk is tens of miles — and conditions are dusty, hot, and rugged on the feet (especially without shoes). The scenery is breath-taking, but obviously no one is taking pictures or stopping to admire the view, when they are more concerned about finding water for their children.

When my Ethiopian colleague, Dr. Alemayehu Wassie Eshete, visited me at New College of Florida, he made the amazing discovery of Google-Earth. Subsequently, he stayed up into the wee hours of the night, printing out Google images of many of the church forests for which he had studied. He was amazed, and we were both also saddened, because the images illustrated the soil color changes where shrinkage of the original forests had occurred. This made our conservation project all the more urgent and compelling. These images also illustrate the arid, stressed agricultural landscapes surrounding the church forests, which indicates the importance of working on increasing the crop yields as well as conserving the native seed sources, pollinators and fresh water springs (all of which tend to be inside the church forests). Fortunately, the Coptic bishops recognize the urgency of conserving their boundaries, as a spiritual as well as an ecosystem services, priority for the quality of the next generation. Together, we hope to creative some innovative solutions and educate the people about ecosystem services. A BIG thanks to Google-Earth whose images really brought home the conservation message to the Bishops of the Coptic churches in Ethiopia, when I showed them these pictures last year in our first meeting.