Fighting for Survival: Ethiopia's Largest Community Conservation Area Fights For Survival After Funding Cut
How four Indigenous tribes united to protect 500,000 acres of wildlife—then lost their lifeline
Key Points
- ✓ USAID abruptly terminated $8.5 million in funding for Ethiopia's largest community conservation area, leaving 20,000 Indigenous people without land protection and threatening years of conservation progress.
- ✓ Under community management, elephant and giraffe populations increased while illegal hunting decreased across 500,000 acres of critical wildlife corridor.
- ✓ The Musri tribe successfully petitioned for 15 years, from 2008 to 2023, to create joint management of their ancestral lands.
- ✓ Cool Ground NGO is providing emergency bridge funding until February 2026 but without immediate support, conservation gains and community livelihoods face complete collapse.
When Funding Disappears, People and Wildlife Pay the Price
In January 2025, Barkede Kulumedere received a phone call that shattered years of conservation progress. USAID was immediately terminating the $8.5 million BIOM project supporting Ethiopia's Tama Community Conservation Area. Scout salaries would stop. Anti-poaching patrols would end. The largest community managed conservation area in Ethiopia would lose its lifeline.
"We had scouts who worked their last month and haven't been paid," says Barkede, now 26, who manages community affairs in the conservation area. "Many people lost their jobs overnight. Some returned to illegal hunting because they had no other choice."
The Tama Community Conservation Area spans 500,000 acres of critical wildlife corridor in southwest Ethiopia, connecting Omo and Mago National Parks. It protects some of Africa's most endangered species—including Ethiopian populations of lions, African wild dogs, cheetahs, and Somali giraffes—while providing sustainable livelihoods for 20,000 Indigenous people across four communities.
Until January, it was working.
Will Hurd of Cool Ground, a nonprofit providing emergency bridge funding, emphasizes the urgency: "We've got about 6 months of funding left, at a bare minimum project. The immediate next step is to raise more funding. We're hampered in what we can do until then."
"We used to protect these animals because they were part of our heritage. Now we protect them because we know they can secure our children's future—if we can keep the program alive." — Alawara Kolbala, Tama Community Conservation Area Council Member
How It Works: Community-Led Conservation in Action
- • Governance Structure: Joint council with representatives from Mursi, Bodi, Kwegu, and Ari communities makes all management decisions through traditional consensus-building
- • Scout Network: 40 community-employed scouts conduct anti-poaching patrols, monitor wildlife populations, and prevent illegal deforestation using traditional knowledge and modern techniques
- • Management Framework: Comprehensive bylaws govern farming, grazing, hunting, and tourism activities while protecting critical wildlife habitats and migration corridors
- • Revenue Streams: Income generated through controlled ecotourism, regulated hunting licenses, cultural tourism experiences, and sustainable craft production
- • Conservation Results: Increased populations of wildlife and reduced illegal hunting incidents
Crisis vs Opportunity: Ethiopia's Wildlife at a Crossroads
The Crisis
National Scale: 12 people and 6 elephants killed in first 9 months of 2024 at Babile Elephant Sanctuary alone
Widespread Encroachment: Illegal settlements, hunting, and farming threaten nearly all of Ethiopia's 15 national parks
Human-Wildlife Conflict: Rising incidents as habitats shrink and communities encroach on protected areas
Economic Losses: Tourism industry threatened despite earning $3.5 billion from foreign visitors in 9 months
Enforcement Failures: Government struggles to provide adequate security across vast protected areas
The Opportunity
Proven Success: Tama's community management model shows wildlife populations increasing under Indigenous protection
Scalable Solution: 500,000 acres successfully managed by 4-tribe partnership demonstrates community conservation works at scale
Conflict Resolution: Traditional enemies now cooperate to protect shared wildlife heritage—model for peace-building
Tourism Potential: Tama offers authentic cultural experiences plus wildlife viewing in critical corridor between national parks
Community Policing: Local scouts with traditional knowledge prove more effective than external enforcement
The Bottom Line: While Ethiopia's national parks face unprecedented threats, the Tama Community Conservation Area demonstrates that Indigenous-led management can reverse wildlife decline while providing sustainable livelihoods.
A 15-Year Fight for Recognition
The story begins long before the funding crisis. In 2010, the community began a legal battle that would span more than a decade. The Musri were petitioning the Ethiopian government for something unprecedented: joint management rights over their ancestral lands as a community conservation area.
Traditional wildlife reserves were failing in this region. Government protection existed on paper but not in practice. Meanwhile, major development projects, including the Gilgel Gibe III Dam and industrial sugar plantations, were displacing communities and fragmenting wildlife habitats.
"The granting of land within the conservation area to investors, establishing settlements, and the negative impacts of the Kuraz Sugar Development Project in neighboring areas were issues that inspired the call for action," Barkede explains.
In 2023, after 13 years of advocacy, the Southern Nations, Nationalities, and Peoples' Region government officially recognized the Tama Community Conservation Area. At 197,000 hectares (later expanded to 500,000 acres), it became Ethiopia's largest community-managed conservation area—nearly 20 times larger than the country's previous record-holder.
By the Numbers
Conservation Success Meets Funding Reality
Under community management, the conservation area began showing remarkable results. Illegal hunting decreased significantly as community scouts—drawn from the same populations that once hunted for survival—became protectors of their wildlife heritage. Wildlife populations started recovering. Deforestation slowed.
The success attracted international attention and USAID's substantial investment through the BIOM Alliance project. The funding supported community capacity building, scout training, governance development, and infrastructure development for sustainable tourism.
But international development funding operates on different timelines than conservation biology. Species recovery takes decades. Building sustainable tourism infrastructure requires years. Creating alternative livelihoods for communities that have depended on natural resources for centuries doesn't happen overnight.
"We have already set up our office and strengthened the system. With the income we generate, we can build clinics, schools and water facilities that serve the entire community." — Alawara Kolbala, TCCA Council Member
Building Self-Sufficiency from the Ground Up
Rather than collapse, the communities are fighting back. With emergency support from Cool Ground, a nonprofit that has supported Omo Valley Indigenous communities for 19 years, they're working to establish financial independence. However, donor funding remains vital to the survival of the project at its current level.
The timing of the funding loss could not have been worse. "We had just completed the council formation when the funding was pulled," Hurd explains. "If we did get more funding we would work on teaching the community conservation council how to run the CCA." While scouts remain on patrol protecting wildlife, operations have been scaled back significantly, and a critical component remains undeveloped: "A big piece of the puzzle that didn't get formed was the community livelihoods piece. That was on the agenda before the loss of funding."
Meseret Admasu, former chief warden of nearby Mago National Park who worked on the BIOM project, sees strong potential for success: "The community has great interest in the TCCA. But as a legislative body, it can't implement its decisions without an operational office. Once in place, it can begin executing strategies that not only address the current financial issues but also generate sustainable income."
The plan centers on building three essential capacities. "The things we need most are capacity building for the council, livelihood development from tourism and better funding for biodiversity protection," says Hurd. This includes establishing a formal administrative structure with elected representatives from each kebele (neighborhood) across all four ethnic groups, developing diverse income sources through controlled ecotourism including indigenous scout-led game walks and cultural tourism programs, and establishing permanent infrastructure for administration and patrols.
"Once the TCCA starts to generate revenue, conflicts will directly affect the communities' revenue stream. We hope the TCCA will be like the European Union, where, having tied their economies together, the communities no longer fight." — Will Hurd, Cool Ground
Overcoming Barriers To Community-Led Conservation
Conservation experts see the Tama Community Conservation Area as representing something larger than wildlife protection in one remote region of Ethiopia. It's a test case for community-led conservation across Africa, where Indigenous communities manage an estimated 80% of the continent's biodiversity.
The funding crisis raises broader concerns about the sustainability of community conservation models. The Tama is the only community conservation project in southern Ethiopia, while the region's other major initiative, Menz-Guassa in the north, has been severely affected by violence. The pattern of unstable funding threatens to undermine progress across the sector.
"In a country with limited conservation funding and weak local infrastructure, donor support is not just desirable, it's critical," says Lakew Birhanu, a conservation biologist involved in establishing the area. "But that support must focus on building local capacity, providing technical assistance, and laying the groundwork for income generation. Only then can these communities manage conservation efforts through their own leadership and knowledge."
While fighting continues between the tribes of the Tama area, in the TCCA have achieved what many thought impossible: working together for their shared environment.
However, now a fight begins to survive the funding crisis. The wildlife populations are recovering, the governance structures are functioning, and the communities are committed. What's missing is the bridge funding and technical support to reach a level of self-sufficiency.
"We want collaboration, the more people that can help the Tama continue to exist the better," says Hurd. "We also need funding ASAP." Without immediate support, one of Africa's most promising community conservation experiments could disappear, taking with it not just endangered species but also a model for Indigenous-led environmental stewardship that the continent desperately needs.
Sources
After USAID cut, Ethiopia's largest community conservation area aims for self-sufficiency - Solomon Yimer, Mongabay
Cool Ground - Supporting Indigenous communities in the Omo Valley
Biodiversity and Community Resilience in the Omo Valley (BIOM Alliance) - University of Leeds
Biodiversity Potential for Resilient Livelihoods in the Lower Omo, Ethiopia - Gund Centre for Biodiversity and Conservation
Note to Media
Under our Creative Commons licence, editors and journalists are welcome to republish and reuse this article.
Scientific angles for further reporting: Community-based conservation effectiveness in biodiversity hotspots • Indigenous knowledge integration in wildlife management • Economic sustainability models for community conservation areas • Human-wildlife conflict resolution in pastoral communities • Trans-boundary conservation corridor management
For further information from the academics and community leaders featured in this article, reach out to AfricaLive to coordinate interviews or contact Cool Ground directly.
How You Can Help
The Tama Community Conservation Area needs immediate support to survive the transition to self-sufficiency. For partnership opportunities, technical assistance, or funding inquiries, contact Cool Ground.
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