A walk on the moon: the Sanetti Plateau at around 4000 m elevation (Credit: Daniel van Rooijen)
The Bale Mountains are an undiscovered part of Ethiopia, with breathtaking landscapes spanning a variety of agro-ecological zones. You can start with a road trip taking you from the green agro-pastoral highlands across the massive plateau, a beautifully empty landscape and habitat of the rare Ethiopian wolf, endemic to Ethiopia. You have a good chance of spotting one or two. The plateau stands out at an elevation of over 4,000 meters (with Tulu Dimtu as Ethiopia’s second highest peak at 4,377 m a.s.l.). At 2,067 km2, the Ethiopian plateau is the largest Afro-alpine habitat on the continent.
View south from the Sanetti Plateau. (Credit: Daniel van Rooijen)
The 1200-meter descent from the plateau down into the extensive Harenna forest on the southern side of the park is a fantastic experience, taking the traveler through fairytale-like forest landscapes. The forest area is famous for forest coffee and wild honey, and it’s very much worth getting a taste of both! Hidden deep within the forest, there is also the comfortable Bale Mountain Lodge (maybe the best lodge in Africa!) where you can relax, enjoy the views and take a hike through the dense forest.
Driving further south, you enter the flatter and more arid landscapes around Delo Mena, where camels, cows and goats roam around in the dust. Only an hour or two away from the Harenna forest, it feels like you have entered an entirely different world.
The stunning Harenna forest. (Credit: Daniel van Rooijen)
The Bale Eco-Region has over 300 bird species and a number of endemic species, such as Bale’s big five: the Ethiopian Wolf, Mountain Nyala, Bale Monkey, Giant Mole Rat and Menelik’s Bushbuck. With all its uniqueness, the Bale Mountains National Park, established in 1969, was rightly nominated as a World Heritage site in 2009 but still has surprisingly low visitor numbers. So if you are looking for a unique getaway, come to the Bale Mountains!
Adventurous travelers can explore the area on horse or by foot. Hiking, horseback riding, fishing, wildlife spotting, it can all be done. Along the way, you can also visit Sof Omar Cave, possibly Africa’s longest cave system with a staggering 15.1 km of cave simply waiting to be discovered.
The Bale Eco-Region is also one of the 34 global biodiversity hotspots under threat from human activities, including man-made fires, cattle grazing and deforestation. The EU-funded SHARE project supports governmental efforts to reduce pressures on natural resources through interventions such as family planning, participatory forest management, livestock tracking and feasibility studies on payment for ecosystem services.
Boy showing his catch of the day in the dry lowlands of Bale. (Credit: Daniel van Rooijen)
As a post-doctoral fellow based at the International Water Management Institute in Addis Ababa, I am leading a research effort that is investigating a number of research issues that have emerged from past work carried out by development partners in the area. The research issues centre around highland-lowland links of natural resource dependencies and uses, of which hydrology has a strong role. The research is carried out in collaboration with a number of national research institutes and universities in Ethiopia.
For more information, see: http://www.farmafrica.org/ethiopia/share-bale-eco-region