💭 Dr. Tewolde Berhan Gebre Egziabher, the re-known Ethiopian scientist, who has worked to ensure biodiversity and the rights of communities to their genetic resources has been arrested by the fascist Oromo regime of Ethiopia because he is of Tigrayan origin. Dr. Tewolde is undergoing cancer treatment – and is now at his death bed. 😠😠😠😢😢😢
On the Ethiopian highlands, church grounds have become accidental time capsules of biodiversity.
I wrestled with judging the Ethiopian Church for holding its beliefs imperfectly, like all things human. Why not save more of the forest than just a small patch around the church? Where was the church when 97 percent of Ethiopia’s primary forest was destroyed?
For me, these little blips of green forest rising out of vast swaths of deforested brown earth represent hope. They are a powerful intersection of faith and science doing some good in the world.
E.O. Wilson, in his book “Half-Earth,” declared the church forests of Ethiopia “one of the best places in the biosphere.” They are proof that when faith and science make common cause on ecological issues, it results in a model that bears repeating. We have the blueprint of life held in these tiny circles of faith, and that’s something to rejoice over and protect and expand with every resource we can muster.
ከጋዜጣው ተመርጠው የቀረቡ አስተያየቶች/ Selected Comments:
„Don’t think there was anything accidental about the survival of these forest. The church protected them.„
„Thank you for producing this story. If only the following priest’s quote could be taken to heart by all faith communities, “…when someone plants a tree, every time it moves, that tree prays for that person to live longer.” The world would be a more lush, peaceful place.„
„Thank you for this beautiful, sublime piece. I shed a tear, not only for the sentiment expressed for forest.preservation, but for the utter decimation of the surrounding landscape. Joni Mitchell’s lyrics in Big Yellow Taxi come to mind: “Don’t it always seem to go, you don’t know what you’ve got til it’s gone. They paved.Paradise and put up a parking lot.” As go the forests, so goes humanity.„
„This beautiful video leaves me saddened and hopeful at the same time. We’ve mostly lost the connection between our spirituality and creation. In the industrialized world we seem to think that we need sanctuary from nature rather than sanctuary within it. Could it be that declining spirituality can be at least partly explained by this? Even if you are not religious there should be room for wonder about the natural world around us and a desire to protect it so that it protects us.„
„I am a nature lover. Beginning my day with a walk in nature and hugging a tree is my church. This story speaks to me and the video was a feast for the eyes! Thank you! I now want to add Ethiopia to my list of places to visit.„
Dr. David Goodin (Canada) presents “Christology and Eco-Theology: The Centrality of Cyril of Alexandria in Safeguarding Ethiopian Tewahedo Church Forests” at the Inaugural Conference of the International Orthodox Theological Association (IOTA), with the theme Pan-Orthodox Unity and Conciliarity, held January 9 to 12, 2019, in Iasi, Romania.