Tag: afar

Change looms for Ethiopia’s ancient salt trade

By Siegfried Modola

HAMAD-ILE, Ethiopia (Reuters) – Abdu Ibrahim Mohammed was 15 years old when he began trekking with caravans of camels to collect salt in a sun-blasted desert basin of north Ethiopia that is one of the hottest places on earth.

Now 51 and retired, he has passed his camels to his son to pursue this centuries-old trade in “white gold” from the Danakil Depression, where rain almost never falls and the average temperature is 94 degrees Fahrenheit (34.4 Celsius).

But the tradition of hacking salt slabs from the earth’s crust and transporting them by camel is changing as a paved road is built across the northern Afar region.

Although the road being cut through the Danakil Depression is making it easier to transport the salt, the region’s fiercely independent local salt miners and traders are wary of the access it might give to industrial mining companies with mechanised extraction techniques that require far less labour.

“Most of the people who live here are dependent on the salt caravans, so we are not happy with prospective salt companies that try to set up base here,” said Abdullah Ali Noor, a chief and clan leader’s son in Hamad-Ile, on the salt desert’s edge.

“Everything has to be initiated from the community. We prefer to stick with the old ways,” he added.

The tarmac road will link the highland city of Mekele with the village of Dallol in the Danakil Depression, a harsh but hauntingly beautiful geographical wonder of salt flats and volcanoes once described as “a land of death” by the famous British desert explorer Wilfred Thesiger.

The road has cut from five hours to three the drive from Mekele to Berahile, a town two days’ trek by camel from the Afar salt deposits that are one of Ethiopia’s main sources of the crystalline food product.

New roads like these are gradually helping to transform this landlocked Horn of Africa state, which has a unique culture and history but has been racked by coups, famines and droughts, into one of the fastest-growing economies on the continent.

As Africa’s biggest coffee producer, Ethiopia’s economy remains based on agriculture, which accounts for 46 percent of gross domestic product and 85 percent of employment. But its nearly 94 million population – the second biggest in Africa – is attracting the attention of foreign investors hungry for new markets.

ACCESS TO MARKET

Further south in the Danakil Depression, at the salt reserve of Lake Afdera, industrial salt production is already under way.

A company named Berhane and Zewdu PLC came to the desert plains near Hamad-Ile in 2011 aiming to produce salt there, according to Noor.

Clan leaders saw the threat to their ancient trade and lined up to oppose the project. Fearing sabotage of its equipment, the company left the following year, local people said.

But Noor still welcomed the new road.

“The new highway will give easy access to the market, which will bring benefits and development to this region,” Noor said.

The development he talks of is visible in Berahile, where caravans from the salt pans come to drop off their cargo so it can be transported to the rest of the country. Most residents are involved directly or indirectly in the salt business.

Telephone and electricity networks have been extended to the town over the past four years, a new Berahile Salt Association was established in 2010 to facilitate trade and a recently built salt store is now the biggest construction in town.

“Thousands of people benefit from this work as the salt here is exported throughout the country,” said the head of the association, Derassa Shifa.

For now, tradition and modernity co-exist – the organisation buys salt from the caravans that make the four-day trek to the salt flats and back, then sells it to merchants who carry it away by truck.

The salt blocks, which were once used as a unit of money, are sold across Ethiopia, many of them to farmers to provide their animals with essential minerals. Ethiopia has the largest livestock population on the African continent.

Life is harsh for the thousands of camel herders and salt extractors who use traditional hoes and axes to carve the “white gold” out of the ground in the Danakil Depression.

Many of the salt diggers live in Hamad-Ile and hire out their services to different caravans.

The work, however exhausting, still draws thousands onto the baking salt flats.

“You forget about the sun and the heat,” said Kidane Berhe, 45, a camel herder and salt merchant. “I lost a friend once on the salt desert because he was working too much with no protection from the sun. Eventually he just collapsed.”

Ethiopia looks to realise its geothermal energy potential

Danakil Depression EthiopiaInitial exploration and drilling to be funded by Development Bank of Ethiopia as part of World Bank collaboration

Ethiopia, like its fellow Great Rift Valley countries, has enormous geothermal energy potential. However, the costs involved and the need for skilled expertise have, until now, been major obstacles.

In late January, the Development Bank of Ethiopia announced that, over the next five months, it will offer an initial $20m to kickstart geothermal energy projects in the country’s private sector as part of a programme funded by the World Bank. A further $20m is expected to be made available at a later stage.

Last May, the World Bank granted Ethiopia $40m to help accelerate the development of renewable energy projects in the country’s private sector. The Development Bank of Ethiopia says it is in discussions with several interested parties and is collaborating with the World Bank.

The money will help cover the costs of early exploration and drilling activities. When drilling proves successful, the bank will invite private investors to lead geothermal projects and develop power plants in Ethiopia. Cluff Geothermal – a British company involved in developing Kenya’s first geothermal project, in Menengai – has been shortlisted.

“In Ethiopia we have conducted a scoping environmental impact assessment on a site close to the town of Metehara,” says Cluff managing director George Day. “The government of Ethiopia has strong commitments to developing geothermal as part of its energy mix. We must remain patient while the country’s regulatory framework is prepared for independent power producers such as ourselves. We are confident that this will be in the next six months.”

As part of the funding agreement last year, the World Bank promised Ethiopia a further $200m to develop the country’s energy market.

The renewable energy programme of the World Bank’s climate investment funds – which cover financing geothermal development projects – has been led by the African Development Bank, which has already co-ordinated ambitious geothermal schemes in Djibouti, Kenya and Tanzania.

East Africa’s potential in this area is considerable, says Professor Paul Younger of Glasgow University. “Geothermal development in Kenya is far and away the principal success story to date, albeit Ethiopia is about to upgrade their Aluto Langano power plant from a nominal 8.3 MWe pilot to 75 MWe full scale. At present, all other countries along the Rift are only at preliminary study stage, but there will almost certainly be other developments at considerable scale in Djibouti and, if they ever get out of the political morass, Eritrea, and likely also in Tanzania and Uganda at the very least.”

Massive water resources generated in its high plains mean Ethiopia has an estimated hydropower potential of up to 45,000 MW, the second highest in Africa. Hydropower generates 86% of electricity in Ethiopia, a boon for a country with low levels of per-capita access.

The risks of overdependence on hydropower, and the need to diversify the country’s energy sources to ensure a stable supply, are understood by the Ethiopian Electric Power Corporation (Eepco), the state provider.

“The rainfall in Ethiopia varies considerably from year to year, therefore an overdependence on hydropower makes the energy supply very unstable, while instability of supply creates negative impacts on industry and the economy,” says Eepco’s Mulugeta Asaye. “After hydropower, geothermal energy development is the second priority for Ethiopia.”

Ethiopia’s ambitious five-year growth and transformation plan, which began in 2010, aims to increase the existing 2,179 MW generating capacity at least fourfold.

“Studies at various exploration phases have been carried out since 1969 and indicate that geothermal energy could generate up to 5,000 MW,” says Asaye.

Younger believes Ethiopia’s impressive economic growth trajectory and development ambitions, largely sustained by hydropower, could be thwarted by the effects of climate change. With droughts increasingly common and rainfall more erratic, the country needs to seriously invest in renewable energy sources such as geothermal, he says.

“The real urgency is to supply the 85% of the population who still lack ready access to affordable energy of any sort; if this can be done by renewables, stepping out of the high-carbon era, then so much the better. Certainly if population growth, and increasing prosperity, can be attained without carbon-intensive energy, it will go a long way to combating climate change, to which these countries are already manifestly highly vulnerable.”