The photo below is incorrectly reported as showing destroyed trees in Ethiopia. However, the report about trees being cut in a massive scale to clear lands for flower farm is correct. Not only trees, according a VOA report yesterday, close to a million people are being uprooted from their land in 4 regions of Ethiopia. Their land is being leased by the ruling party Woyanne to foreign corporations. Listen here:
————————
Nov. 23, 2010
The Meles ethnic apartheid regime has given a land in western Ethiopia that is the size of the State of Rhodes Island (765,000 hectares) to an Indian corporation named Karuturi Global. Thousands of Ethiopians who used to live and earn their living on the land have been displaced, and a few of them are hired by Karturi at meager salaries.
The photo below shows how the forest in south western Ethiopia is being destroyed to make space for flower farming for export to Europe. When asked about the impact of clearing trees to grow flowers in such a massive scale, Woyanne minister of agriculture Abera Deressa said: We in the Ministry of Agriculture are developing an environmental code of practice for the private sector… We are advising them not to cut trees, they have to manage soil erosion.”
Obviously the stupid minister doesn’t know what he is talking about. Trees are being cleared as shows above and the impact on the environment, as well as the people in the region, is incalculable. Every independent study also indicates that after a few years of growing flower, the land will be useless.
The following is a report by the VOA