Entoto Natural Park ( Light Mode)

Annex 2. Table of Trees, Shrubs, Flowers and Herbs to Introduce in the Entoto Natural Park. Description of Characters of Seedlings to be Planted in the Park Area Table 1 is based on a meeting at the National Herbarium with Sue Edwards, editor of the Flora "Some Wild Flowering Plants of Ethiopia" (Edwards 1976). Some of the plants in the table are already present in the Entoto area but in various quantities. Some species belong to open areas, and some are forest plants. (A detailed inventory of the vegetation of Entoto started in October 1994.) To get an idea of what can be grown in the Entoto Natural Park, table 2 shows the composition of different vegetation stratas in the Menagesha State Forest, set together by Dr. Sebsebe Demissew at National Herbarium (published in Mountain Research and Development Studies Vol. 8, number 2, May 1988). The indigenous  Podocarpus falcatus (P. gracilior)   tree is scarce on Entoto; it seems that it can no longer give surviving progeny in t...

Geology A large part of Ethiopia is mountainous, and the Highlands are known as the Ethiopian Plateau. The setting of the proposed park area is on a mountain ridge that comes from the north, bends just where the capital is situated, and then descends to the west. The mountain of Entoto, like the bulk of the plateau, consists of volcanic rocks (Egziabher 1988), like reddish rhyolite, trachytes, ignimbrites, tuffs and welded tuffs (Mehari), and black glassy obsidian. Obsidian can be used in decorative ways for building and paving, and welded tuffs are often easy to quarry and can be used for durable construction works or even carved out into caves (Lutgens 1986). The typical soil type of the Ethiopian plateau is Alfisol, described by Foth (1984) as one of the better soils for agricultural use. The principal suborder here is a reddish-brown Ustalf, and cultivation on this type of soil will cause severe erosion by heavy rains (Håkan Blanck and Pia Englund, Entoto Natural Park 1995)....

  Our heartfelt condolences to everyone affected by the sudden landslide in Gofa, Southern Ethiopia, and our thoughts are with those who have lost their lives and their loved ones. We commend the ongoing rescue efforts to support families in grief and to re-establish society on a familiar and emotionally stable foundation. CAUTION:   T he  S lopes'  D angerous  R estoration Highly Contradictory Effects from Water Sudden influxes of water, most often caused by human interference, can destabilize and damage the vacuum-anchoring suction effect in mountainous landscapes. This phenomenon, driven by human mismanagement, results in the accumulation of gravitational water pressure within the soil layers of hillsides over time, creating a dangerous, floating, and lubricating mass that exerts a driving force toward the settlements, a devastating threat of landslides and lahars. Furthermore, a previous reduction in trees removes root reinforcement, making the slopes more f...