European and American people tend to think of Ethiopia as a dry, barren land. This is the image promoted by most Non Governmental Organizations. Western tourists who visit Ethiopia generally visit Addis Ababa and the ancient Christian sites in the north, an itinerary which inevitably confirms this belief.Yet the south of the country, particularly the south-west is not a dry and barren place – it is green and fertile. Unfortunately the area is also remote and under-resourced, and the forests are in imminent danger of disappearing. This tragedy is happening because of the pressure placed on environment by a rapidly expanding but poverty-stricken native population, government sponsored immigrants from the north and tea and coffee companies who are stripping out vast areas for short-term commercial gain. SEPAG, in Ethiopia, is based in the Shekacho zone, in the heart of this environmentally threatened area.

In the past 50 years forest cover in Ethiopia has been reduced from 40% of the land area to 3%. This surviving remnant is largely in the south-west of the country. Until the 1970s there were few roads in the area and access was by horseback, but the construction of roads means that even this relatively tiny area of moist broad leaved and bamboo forests is likely to disappear very soon. Like much Ethiopia the area has a high altitude. The weather is relatively mild – warm, with plenty of rainfall. At times there can be torrential rain and even hail storms – these latter can, at the wrong time, destroy standing crops. Sometimes the landscape, with its woods and pastures, looks deceptively like England!

Hartmann estimates that there are 10 million been colonies in Africa and that Ethiopia has the largest bee population of the continent. Cylindrical bee hives are a common sight scattered high in the tree tops of the forest in this area. The contents of the hives are used for both wax and as food. Ownership of hives confers social status.