By Tom Gardner
CHIRA, Ethiopia, Sept 6 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – Every month Ethiopian coffee farmer Zelalem Tadesse makes the long and arduous journey to court to fight for the return of the land he inherited from his father.
For years the 46-year-old father of three has cultivated the small patch of land deep in Ethiopia’s southwestern forests that he says a nearby commercial coffee farm took from him.
“When I go to get my land back it’s very expensive,” he said of his trips to the nearby town of Jimma and, more recently, the capital Addis Ababa. “But my life totally depends on this land.”
Zelalem has no formal title deeds to the land and although Ethiopia recognises some customary rights to forest access, in practice these are often ignored by local authorities and investors.
He and his neighbours in Chira, a small highland town dependent on coffee production, complain their livelihoods are being squeezed by commercial investors in the region’s ancient forests.
Anger over land expropriations and unfair compensation drove protests across this region and other parts of Ethiopia from late 2014, leading to the imposition of a state of emergency and eventually a new prime minister, Abiy Ahmed, in April.
Zelalem’s friend Tilahun Mamo told the Thomson Reuters Foundation he too was taking a local coffee investor to court for unfair land expropriation, waving a letter he had delivered to the local government early this year.
“(The investor) took my land in 2011,” he said. “It’s been a problem for seven years now. I asked for compensation, but they laughed at me. There’s been no compensation at all.”
“They promised us employment, road access, electricity and a health centre,” he added. “But none of it happened.”
