Guassa Community Conservation Area
| Guassa Community Conservation Area | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Location |
Menz Province, Ethiopia
|
| Nearest city | Addis Ababa |
| Coordinates | 10°20′32″N 39°45′46″E / 10.34222°N 39.76278°ECoordinates: 10°20′32″N 39°45′46″E / 10.34222°N 39.76278°E |
| Area | 100 km2 (39 sq mi) |
| Established | 17th Century |
The Guassa Community Conservation Area (GCCA) is one of the oldest known common property resource management in Sub-Saharan Africa. It has been the focus of an indigenous natural resource management institution, known as “Qero,” system for over 400 years It is located 80 km off the main highway, and is home to numerous endemic birds and wildlife species, including the iconic Ethiopian wolf and the Ethiopian gelada. The high altitude Afro-alpine Festuca grassland, or ‘Guassa” grass gives the area its name.
GCCA lies at a latitude of 10° 15′ – 10° 27′ N and longitude of 39° 45′ – 39° 49′ E. The area is part of the Menz-Gera Administrative District in the North Shoa Administrative Zone of the regional state of Amhara Region. The district capital is the town of Mehal Meda located 20 km from the Guassa Area.
The Guassa Area originated as a community-based natural resource management system known as “Qero” over 400 years ago. It is one of the oldest known conservation areas in Sub-Saharan Africa. The Qero system is organized by two formally elected chiefs who oversee the beneficiary communities to ensure equitable resource distribution, and enforce the bylaws protecting the common property resources. Based on traditional tenure patterns, rules of protection and utilization as well as enforcement are essential aspects of the Qero system. Further organization of the user community into parishes gave the Guassa area the status of consecrated land, under the protective patronage of the parish, which reinforced the Qero system with the prestige, power, and authority of another important local level institution. In the process, the Guassa common property resources became a kind of sacred entity. Following the 1974 popular revolution, the government nationalized all rural land in the country, disbanded all local level land tenure and common property natural resource management institutions. This agrarian reform destroyed the functionality of the Qero system and the Guassa area was turned into an open access resource, which resulted in extreme decline of natural resources in the area.
The population of the Menz Gera Administrative District is about 111,000. The population is predominantly Amhara, one of the largest cultural ethnic groups in the country. Their language is Amharic, the official language of Ethiopia, which is a Semitic language descended from Ge’ez, the ancient liturgical language of Ethiopia now only used in the Ethiopian Orthodox Church to which most people belong.
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