Tigray

In the 1980s northern Ethiopia was ravaged by drought and famine. The 1984 famine affected about eight million people and killed about one million.

Soon after 1991 the regional government and communities began restoring land on a huge scale. People gave around 20 days of work a year, often 20 days of soil and water work early in the year and 20 days of planting later. Over three decades, 30 to 40 percent of the population took part.

They built stone terraces and bunds on hillsides, dug trenches and ponds, filled gullies with gabion check dams, and closed very degraded land to grazing and firewood cutting so it could regrow. Village development groups of about 30 households planned the work together.

Hills turned green, groundwater recharged in the valleys, and people could dig shallow wells. In 2007 Tigray became self-sufficient in food. In 2017 its land restoration policy won the Gold Future Policy Award, chosen ahead of 26 other policies.

War began in November 2020. Researchers estimate that as many as 600,000 people died, mainly from starvation, and 2.1 million were displaced. Fruit trees, forests, terraces and nurseries were destroyed, and many families had to cut trees for fuel. A peace agreement was signed on 2 November 2022, but in October 2026 the African Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights warned of renewed fighting. The people who built this landscape are still living through the cost.

• Community work days every year for soil and water conservation and planting
• Stone terraces, bunds, trenches and runoff ponds to slow and hold rain
• Gabion check dams to heal gullies
• Exclosures: closing degraded land to grazing and wood cutting so it can regrow
• Small-scale irrigation from recharged groundwater

The people of Tigray did this work: farming families, women, men and young people in every village, organised through village development groups and local extension officers, with the regional government leading. The Tigray Agricultural Research Institute, Mekelle University and other researchers supported and studied the work.

The 2020 to 2022 war caused immense human suffering, with estimates of up to 600,000 deaths, mainly from starvation, and destroyed much of the restoration work. Renewed fighting was reported in late 2026.

The community work was described as voluntary, but it was also expected of residents, and some public works were part of a food-for-work safety net.

Reported areas differ between sources and years (from 224,000 to more than 1 million hectares) because they measure different things.

• Whole communities working a few weeks each year can reshape a landscape in a generation.
• Closing land to grazing lets it heal, but people need other ways to feed animals and cook.
• Restored land is only as safe as the people who live on it: peace is part of restoration.