A Lesson Before the Argument

There are cities that seem, for a brief moment in history, to embody the future. In February 1984, Sarajevo was one of them. For two weeks, the capital of socialist Yugoslavia became the center of the world, as television cameras followed skiers down the slopes of Igman, watched bobsleds thunder through the curves of Trebević, and lingered over a skyline where Ottoman minarets stood beside Austro-Hungarian facades and socialist apartment blocks overlooked medieval streets. Cafés filled with Muslims, Serbs, Croats, and Jews suggested that diversity could be lived, not merely proclaimed. The Winter Olympics announced Sarajevo as a confident, modern capital.

Less than a decade later, those same venues had acquired entirely different meanings. The bobsled track became a military position. The stadium hosted funerals instead of competitions. Apartment blocks that had symbolized urban progress were reduced to shells by artillery fire, during nearly four years of the longest siege of a capital city in modern history. The obvious explanation is war. It is also an incomplete one. Wars destroy cities every year, yet some recover quickly while others lose not only their buildings but the social fabric that gave those buildings meaning. Sarajevo’s tragedy was not simply that its infrastructure was damaged. It was that the political and civic foundations capable of protecting that infrastructure had already fractured, in the relationships between citizens, institutions, and the state, long before the first shell landed on an Olympic venue. Concrete was merely the final casualty.

That distinction matters because cities are usually judged by what can be photographed. Governments inaugurate highways, parks, and boulevards because these are visible expressions of ambition; far less visible are the investments that determine whether those achievements still matter thirty years later — schools that cultivate skilled workers, institutions that command public trust, jobs that give young people reasons to remain, and political systems that persuade competing communities they hold an equal stake in the future. These unfold slowly and produce no ceremonies, yet history suggests they are what every successful city ultimately depends on. I do not raise Sarajevo to suggest Ethiopia is destined to repeat Bosnia’s tragedy — the two countries differ too profoundly in history, institutions, and conflict for that comparison to hold. I raise it because it proves something more useful than any direct comparison could: cities are built twice — first with concrete and steel, then with educated, economically secure, and socially invested citizens. Without the second construction, the first remains vulnerable no matter how impressive it looks on the day the ribbon is cut. If infrastructure is the visible face of development, the social contract between citizens and the state is its invisible foundation, and no amount of cement can substitute for it.

That is the argument of this article, stated plainly: infrastructure is a necessary condition for national development, but human development, the education, employment, trust, and inclusion that allow a society to sustain what it builds, is the sufficient condition for making that development last. Everything that follows is evidence for that single proposition, not a list of separate complaints.

That lesson feels unexpectedly relevant today, in another capital undergoing a remarkable physical reinvention. Few visitors returning to Addis Ababa after a decade away fail to notice how profoundly the city has changed. Roads once permanently congested have been widened, public squares redesigned, parks planted where neglected spaces once stood, and historic districts restored under the Prosperity Party’s corridor development program, Sheger Park, Friendship Square, the renewal of Piassa, the reconstruction of Churchill Road. Whether one supports the government or opposes it, intellectual honesty requires acknowledging the scale of this transformation is extraordinary. International conferences increasingly use the city as their venue; tourists and investors now encounter a capital eager to present itself as one of the continent’s emerging metropolitan destinations, and after decades in which Ethiopia abroad was often synonymous with famine, conflict, or crisis, there is understandable pride in seeing the capital recognized for something more hopeful. None of that should be dismissed. Better roads reduce the cost of moving goods and people; attractive cities encourage tourism and investment. Physical infrastructure is not an indulgence, it is one foundation of economic development, and countries that neglect it rarely prosper.

What Concrete Cannot Do

Acknowledging that truth, however, should allow us to ask a harder question: what ultimately determines whether such investments keep generating prosperity long after the construction crews leave? The answer has surprisingly little to do with concrete. Concrete has no memory. Every generation must decide whether it will inherit a city or merely occupy it. Bridges do not inspect themselves. Parks do not generate the tax revenue required for their upkeep. Every physical achievement ultimately depends on something less visible: the capabilities of the people who inherit it. For the sake of precision, I mean something specific by human development, productive employment, quality education, civic trust, political inclusion, and social mobility. Every example that follows in this article is a failure or success in one of those five categories, not a free-floating grievance. Education determines who designs tomorrow’s cities. Employment determines who can afford to sustain them. Trust determines whether citizens treat public property as a shared inheritance or someone else’s possession. Political inclusion determines whether development is experienced as a common project or as one group’s achievement at another’s expense. History repeatedly demonstrates that infrastructure is a necessary condition for prosperity. It is rarely the sufficient one.

Perhaps the most underestimated cost of infrastructure is not construction but maintenance. Every bridge, park, public square, and transport corridor eventually demands engineers, technicians, municipal managers, tax revenue, and institutions capable of keeping it functional. Countries do not become wealthy simply because they build infrastructure. They become wealthy because they build societies capable of maintaining it.

That distinction may sound abstract until one asks a simpler question: what keeps a city alive once the cranes disappear? Construction is an event. Development is a process. A government can widen a highway in three years; it cannot educate an engineer in three years. A bridge may open with a ribbon-cutting ceremony, but the institutions that inspect its safety, collect the taxes that finance its upkeep, and train whoever repairs it are built over decades. Sociologists working in the institutional tradition would call this complementarity: infrastructure and human capital multiply each other’s value rather than substituting for it. A road connects a farmer to a market only if that farmer has the capital, literacy, and trust to use it productively; a corridor without a skilled workforce simply moves goods more efficiently toward a market that still cannot absorb them. Infrastructure creates opportunity. Whether societies convert that opportunity into prosperity depends on the capabilities of the people who inherit it, an insight that, more than any engineering blueprint, explains why some countries grow richer generation after generation while others merely accumulate physical assets. A road expands what is possible; education determines who can seize it.

One reason post-war Germany, Japan, and South Korea are remembered as development success stories is not simply because they rebuilt quickly, but because they rebuilt people as deliberately as they rebuilt cities. Their roads accelerated prosperity because millions of educated, economically secure people knew how to use them productively, infrastructure did not replace human development, it amplified it. History is full of cities whose infrastructure outlived the political and economic systems that gave it purpose. Buildings rarely become obsolete before the societies supporting them do. Infrastructure seldom fails first. Societies do. A state that has proven, in record time, that it can build roads has not thereby proven it can build the institutions those roads depend on, universities, professional civil services, and independent courts take decades to build and can be undone far faster than they were created, because trust is not something a corridor project can manufacture on a construction schedule.

Where the Foundation Is Being Tested

If this sounds theoretical, Ethiopia already offers several practical tests of the argument. The National Dialogue Commission, established in 2022 to build national consensus after years of conflict and polarization, has been assessed by independent analysts,  including researchers at the Clingendael Institute and the Institute for Security Studies, as undermined by its own exclusions, with armed groups and significant opposition figures remaining outside the process, a gap the Commission’s own chief commissioner has publicly acknowledged. A nation cannot ask citizens to invest emotionally in a shared future if parts of that society remain uncertain the conversation includes them; reconciliation is part of the social infrastructure every other development project depends on. A related question runs through the continuing dispute over Addis Ababa’s constitutional status. It is often framed as a legal argument over Article 49, which names Addis Ababa the federal capital while granting Oromia a “special interest” in the city, language two sides now read in irreconcilable ways, with Oromo activists and officials insisting the city’s land will not be negotiated away, and many other Ethiopians, including figures inside the Prosperity Party’s own ranks, regarding Addis Ababa as shared national ground belonging to no single group. Beneath that constitutional argument lies a deeper question of belonging: who sees Addis Ababa as their city, and can a capital undergoing unprecedented transformation become a place its people experience as a common home rather than a prize in a political contest? Even the frustrations surrounding condominium housing reveal something larger than administrative inefficiency. Thousands of Ethiopians who spent years, in some documented cases close to two decades, contributing to government housing schemes have found themselves bypassed, delayed, or caught in disputed lottery draws later annulled for credibility concerns; in one case, more than seven thousand completed units sat unoccupied for years because promised infrastructure was never finished, prompting Ethiopia’s own Ombudsman to formally intervene. For those citizens, the issue is not simply a delayed apartment; it is whether patience and participation in public institutions are rewarded, and when citizens doubt that, the damage extends well beyond housing policy. These three threads are not identical and should not be forced into one political narrative, but together they illuminate a question that receives far less attention than the next redevelopment announcement: is Ethiopia investing as deliberately in the relationships that bind citizens to one another and the state as it is investing in the roads and buildings reshaping its capital? Because if development ultimately rests on a social contract, then every investment in concrete should be matched by an equally serious investment in trust.

People protect what they believe belongs to them, a simple idea, easy to underestimate. Development becomes durable when citizens experience it as something they are building together, and fragile when they experience it as something being done to them. The strongest foundation beneath any city, in the end, is not concrete but ownership. Reports of displacement connected to corridor development have generated real public concern, and whether every individual account proves accurate matters less than the underlying principle: a city beautified over the resentment of the people displaced to build it has not solved its underlying problem, only postponed it. This is felt most acutely by Ethiopia’s young people. A beautifully designed city cannot substitute for the expectation of a future. Boulevards do not remove the anxiety of unemployment; restored public squares do not replace confidence that education will lead to opportunity. Societies remain stable not because every citizen is equally prosperous, but because most believe tomorrow offers more possibility than yesterday. Hope may be the most important infrastructure a country possesses, because people rarely abandon roads they believe lead somewhere.I am not an urban planner, and I do not claim the standing to evaluate traffic modeling or drainage engineering; what I bring instead is more than a decade in youth development and civic engagement, and from that vantage point I would add only this, young people do not stay in a city because its sidewalks are attractive. They stay because they can imagine a future in it.

The question, in any case, is larger than Addis Ababa. A nation of Ethiopia’s size and diversity cannot build its future through one capital alone. South Africa’s economy is not carried by Johannesburg alone but by Cape Town and Durban as well; China’s rise was not built on Beijing and Shanghai in isolation but on a network of cities each developing its own comparative advantage. Ethiopia has its own version of this potential. A genuinely resilient strategy would treat Addis Ababa as one part of a broader network of thriving regional cities, an economic imperative and a political one, since societies stay cohesive when citizens believe the future belongs to them wherever they live, and grow fragile when prosperity appears concentrated in places that feel distant from their own lives.

None of this is an argument for slowing Ethiopia’s development; it is an argument for making that development more durable. Public debate often imagines a false choice between infrastructure and people, as though every kilometer of road comes at the expense of a classroom. History suggests the opposite. Great cities are rarely remembered for their buildings alone, Paris did not become Paris simply because boulevards were constructed under Haussmann, and Seoul is not admired merely for its highways. In each case, physical investment unfolded alongside sustained commitment to education and expanding opportunity, until the skyline became a symbol of a development the society had already begun to earn.

Which brings this back, one final time, to Sarajevo. When the world watched the Winter Olympics in 1984, it saw a beautiful city. What it could not see were the fractures already forming beneath the surface. Buildings can conceal division for a time; boulevards can create the appearance of confidence. None of that substitutes for a society in which citizens genuinely believe they share a future. That is Sarajevo’s enduring lesson, not that beautiful cities inevitably fall, and not that Ethiopia is destined to repeat another country’s tragedy, because history is never that deterministic. The lesson is simpler and more demanding: cities are not ultimately sustained by concrete. They are sustained by the relationships that concrete is meant to serve. As Ethiopia builds a capital worthy of the twenty-first century, the real question is whether it is building a society capable of sustaining it through the twenty-second, whether today’s investments are cultivating educated citizens, trusted institutions, and a political community broad enough that Ethiopians from every background see themselves reflected in the country’s future. Those are not alternatives to infrastructure. They are the conditions that allow infrastructure to endure. Fifty years from now, few will remember how many kilometers of corridor were completed; what future generations will remember is whether this was the moment Ethiopia transformed the appearance of its capital, or transformed the capabilities of its people with equal determination. One day the cranes now dominating Addis Ababa’s skyline will disappear. That is what cranes do. The more enduring question is what will remain after they are gone. If Ethiopia succeeds in building not only boulevards but also educated citizens, trusted institutions, and a shared national future, then today’s construction boom will be remembered as the beginning of something far larger than urban renewal. If it does not, history suggests that even the most impressive skylines cannot carry a society farther than the people prepared to sustain them. Cities are first imagined by architects. They endure because generations of citizens choose to keep imagining them together.

Between June 20 and 28, a powerful heat wave hit Europe, creating the conditions that have fueled the wildfires now raging across large swathes of France and Spain. Soon after the June heat wave, city officials in Rome announced a new, scientifically informed operational strategy to prepare for a hotter world. As with other such efforts in Europe, the heat plan includes emergency responses for the vulnerable, green public spaces, more water fountains, climate shelters, investments in grid resilience, and so forth.

This is not the Eternal City’s first heat initiative. Rome previously rolled out a heat health warning system in 2002, in time for the 2003 heat wave that killed 70,000 people across Europe (including more than 1,000 in Rome). After that, Rome and many other cities enacted emergency plans to provide early warning systems, register vulnerable people, and prepare hospitals. But when a massive heat wave struck in 2022, those two decades of emergency planning proved inadequate. Another 60,000 people died.

Once again, governments announced structural responses such as school closures, event cancellations, and outdoor labor regulations. But while they had some positive effect, this year’s heat wave showed that Europe is still far behind the curve.

The problem is that we are chasing a moving target. Heat waves are becoming more frequent, prolonged, and intense, and this trend has exacerbated other risks. For example, heat waves create ideal conditions for forest fires, which have now hit several countries in southern Europe. They also lead us to overlook increasingly common extreme precipitation, with frequent destructive floods becoming a fact of life, often in the very same places suffering heat waves. Since anthropogenic climate change is the cause of all this, zeroing out greenhouse-gas emissions is the route to stabilization. But until then, current conditions will worsen.

Following major floods in 2023, I argued that a new frontier was coming into view. Europe would need to orchestrate a constitutional response to its shifting material conditions, with a state-led program to transform its economy. Three years and many floods and heat waves later, the frontier is upon us, yet we are still behaving as if nothing has changed. Focusing only on emergency planning, disaster response, and recovery after each catastrophe may fit the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s definition of building “resilience”; but resilience is no longer enough.

That is why I have long focused on the broader, evolving relationship between economic development and the environment. Over the years, country after country has written the story of its future by transforming its landscape. Consider the hydro-infrastructural transformation of the American West during the Progressive Era; Sun Yat-sen’s blueprint for Chinese modernization on the Yangtze; Italy’s extensive land reclamation and hydropower development to support industrialization; Jawaharlal Nehru’s dams, “modern temples of India” that served as symbols of economic emancipation; and Park Chung-hee’s spatial reorganization of the South Korean economy in service of export-led growth.

In The Environmental Republic, I argue that, despite all their mistakes and distortionary effects, these efforts hold a crucial lesson. In changing material conditions, resilience cannot just be about “weathering the storm.” It must be a property of how we grow. The transformation that climate change makes necessary will be of comparable scale and scope to those pursued over the last century.

Consider the energy system. During the June 2026 heat wave, air-conditioner use pushed Rome toward its daily peak electricity capacity of 2.1 GW, and localized blackouts followed. The grid proved inadequate, even though Italy has been investing in it. There is still too little spare capacity; natural gas dominates production; the hydropower share of production is itself vulnerable to climate change; and a significant share of distribution is underground, where thermal stresses from accumulated heat damage cables.

The solution is not simply to fix each of these individual problems. It requires mapping Italy’s long-term energy future. Like many European economies, Italy is suffering declining competitiveness. It needs to find space for innovation and comparative advantage in a global economy that is adopting the tools of 21st-century industrialization: electrification, renewables, automation, and AI. The spatial distribution of that transformation will define the future economy’s network needs, which will both drive grid modernization and pay for it.

Europe faces challenges like this around every corner. Its median age is now 45, with a pensioner for every three workers. By the end of the century, one-third of Europeans will be over 65, the age cohort most vulnerable to heat-induced mortality. But a shrinking workforce with declining productivity obviously cannot support welfare services on the scale that people are used to. The solution must be vastly higher productivity, a larger working-age population, or a combination of the two.

As it happens, the median age in Africa, just across the Mediterranean, is under 20, and the continent’s total population will swell to 2.5 billion by 2050. Politics aside, the conditions for an extraordinarily beneficial partnership are in place. But accommodating migration on any significant scale and sustaining the increase in related trade will have profound territorial consequences. New social housing, transportation infrastructure, and services will add to challenges already facing cities like Rome, Vienna, and Paris. Now open-air museums to Europe’s cultural legacy, these metropolitan centers were modernized with infrastructure designed for a different society, economy, and material conditions.

When asked what made Singapore—transformed from a resource-poor local port into a global hub in the space of a generation—so successful, its founding leader, Lee Kuan Yew, famously answered: “Air conditioning.” He understood that modernity’s most consequential gift has been the control of material conditions.

Europe can no longer afford to treat climate change as a background trend that is unfolding while we are making other plans. Shifting material conditions are the new normal. History tells us that such challenges can be overcome only through transformations on a societal scale. Europe must think much bigger, aiming not for mere resilience but for resilient growth.

Cotton paid for Rwomubuza John’s children’s education and helped him build rental houses that now provide his family with an additional source of income.

The farmer from Kitabu Cell in Muhokya Sub-county cultivates more than six acres, continuing an agricultural tradition that has supported generations of families in Uganda’s Kasese District in the country’s west near the border with the Democratic Republic of Congo.

“Cotton has done a lot for my family. It educated my children and helped me invest in rental property,” Rwomubuza says.

His children have also taken up cotton farming, making the crop part of the family’s continuing economic activity.

Across Kasese, cotton remains an important source of cash income. But farmers and agricultural officials say its ability to generate livelihoods could be strengthened through expanded irrigation, improved seed varieties, more affordable agricultural inputs and a pricing system that gives growers greater certainty.

Three ginneries operate in the district: Rwenzori Cotton Ginnery in Nyakatonzi, Hamudani Ginnery and Mundawulira Ginnery. All three are located within Kasese Municipality and provide a ready market for cotton grown in areas including Nyamwamba Division, Muhokya Sub-county and Mubuku Town Council.

The presence of these buyers, an established community of growers and planned irrigation improvements gives Kasese a base from which to rebuild the crop’s competitiveness.

An established source of household income

Cotton is generally planted between July and August, depending on the arrival of the rains, and harvested between February and March.

For farmers such as Rwomubuza, the crop has already demonstrated its ability to turn farm production into longer-term household assets. He believes better returns would encourage families to continue investing in it.

“Cotton requires a lot of labour and expensive chemicals,” he says. “The government should ensure farmers receive better prices.”

In Rukoki Cell in Nyamwamba Division, Mwesige Eric grows cotton on four acres. He says the crop remains the backbone of many households and a family business passed from one generation to another.

However, cotton requires substantial investment. Farmers may weed their fields up to six times during a season and must spray regularly to control pests and diseases. The crop currently takes about six months to mature.

Mwesige says reducing input costs and giving farmers a stronger role in price discussions would make cultivation more attractive.

“The government should bring farmers and buyers together to agree on a fair price per kilogram,” he says.

He estimates that farmers have generally received between UGX1,500 and UGX2,000 (approximately US$0.40–US$0.53) per kilogram in recent years, while pesticide and other input costs have increased.

Because cotton is a cash crop rather than a food crop, growers depend on the income from their harvest to recover these costs. More predictable prices would help them plan their production and decide how much land to allocate to cotton.

Mwesige says prices announced around planting time can also differ from those offered at harvest. Greater transparency between growers, ginners and other industry players could reduce this uncertainty.

Irrigation could extend the opportunity

One of the biggest opportunities lies in reducing the industry’s dependence on rainfall.

Most cotton-growing areas in Kasese are rain-fed. Shifting rainfall patterns have made it increasingly difficult for farmers to determine the best time to plant.

Adrian Katwetegeke, regional field officer for the Uganda Cotton Ginners and Exporters Association, supports cotton production and marketing in Kasese, Rubirizi and Kamwenge districts.

He says rains would normally begin in July or around the middle of the month, enabling planting to start. In 2026, however, the rains arrived later than expected and had not provided sufficient moisture by late July.

“The rains have changed. Many farmers are anxious and want to plant immediately after receiving a small amount of rainfall, but the soil is still too dry,” Katwetegeke says.

He advises farmers to prepare their land and secure quality seed, but to wait until sufficient rain has fallen before planting. Light showers followed by a prolonged dry spell can prevent seeds from germinating or damage young plants.

Better access to weather information and planting guidance could help farmers respond more effectively to these shifting conditions.

In the longer term, Katwetegeke believes expanded irrigation could transform production by allowing farmers to plant with greater confidence and protect their crops during dry periods.

The Mubuku Irrigation Scheme already demonstrates the potential of irrigated agriculture in the district, although its reach remains limited.

“It is our wish that irrigation infrastructure is expanded to cover more cotton-growing areas so farmers who want to irrigate can access the service,” he says.

Kasese District Principal Agricultural Officer Julius Rukara says the government has plans to expand irrigation around areas including Mubuku Prison Farm, an important cotton-producing zone that frequently experiences extended dry spells.

If implemented, the expansion could help farmers maintain production despite less predictable rainfall. It could also make investment in seed, chemicals and labour less risky.

Faster-maturing cotton could reduce climate risk

Improved cotton varieties present another opportunity.

Rukara has called on Uganda’s National Agricultural Research Organisation to develop varieties that mature in three to four months rather than the approximately six months currently required.

“If shorter-maturing varieties are developed, farmers will be able to harvest even when rainfall is limited,” he says.

A shorter production cycle could allow farmers to take advantage of increasingly narrow rainy seasons, reduce their exposure to drought and earn income sooner. Improved varieties would need to be accompanied by effective extension services so growers know how to cultivate them and manage pests.

Katwetegeke says timely spraying and adherence to recommended farming practices can already help farmers reduce avoidable losses.

Supporting growers with affordable inputs, suitable seed and practical agricultural advice could therefore raise yields while lowering the cost of producing each kilogram of cotton.

Building a stronger market for farmers.

Kasese’s three ginneries give the district processing infrastructure and established buyers. However, farmers say the limited number of buyers can leave them with little bargaining power.

Uganda exports much of its cotton, linking the prices paid to farmers to movements in the international market.

Katwetegeke says growers received approximately UGX1,500 (US$0.40) to UGX1,700 (US$0.45) per kilogram last season, compared with about UGX1,900 (US$0.51) in the preceding season and roughly UGX2,000 (US$0.53) in earlier years.

That exposure to global prices cannot be eliminated entirely, but closer coordination between farmers, ginners and government could improve transparency and help growers understand how local prices are calculated.

Farmer associations or cooperatives could also aggregate production, purchase inputs collectively and give growers a stronger voice in negotiations. However, the story still needs direct reporting from an existing association or cooperative to establish whether such organisation is already taking place in Kasese.

Cotton is also competing for land with cocoa, vanilla and coffee, which Rukara says currently offer farmers attractive prices and more dependable markets.

Rather than signalling the end of cotton, that competition establishes the conditions the sector must meet: it must provide farmers with competitive returns, manageable production costs and greater certainty.

Turning cotton’s history into its next opportunity

Kasese already possesses several of the foundations needed for a stronger cotton economy: experienced farmers, three operating ginneries, established growing areas and a crop with a proven ability to finance education and household investment.

The next step is to strengthen the conditions under which farmers produce it.

Expanded irrigation could protect crops from unreliable rainfall. Faster-maturing varieties could shorten the production cycle. Affordable inputs and stronger extension support could improve yields, while transparent pricing and greater farmer organisation could ensure that growers retain a fairer share of the crop’s value.

For farmers such as Rwomubuza, cotton’s contribution is not theoretical. It can be seen in the children he educated, the property he built and the next generation that has joined the family enterprise.

Unlocking the same opportunity for more families will depend on converting the interventions now being discussed into practical support in Kasese’s cotton-growing communities.

Every Ethiopian has a responsibility to protect the natural heritage that defines our nation. Among our greatest treasures is Bale Mountains National Park, one of Africa’s most extraordinary ecosystems and a sanctuary for wildlife found nowhere else on Earth. More than a tourist destination, the park is a living symbol of Ethiopia’s rich biodiversity, ecological heritage, and our shared responsibility to preserve it for future generations.

Recent publicly shared footage has raised important questions about how tourism activities are being managed in parts of Bale Mountains National Park. Although these observations may not represent every visitor’s experience or the park’s overall management, they highlight practices that deserve careful review to ensure that tourism remains consistent with the long-term conservation of the park’s unique wildlife and ecosystems.

One video showed tourists approaching an Ethiopian wolf at an uncomfortably close distance, potentially disturbing its natural behavior. Another depicted visitors camping inside the park for extended periods, raising concerns about the cumulative impacts of prolonged human presence in ecologically sensitive areas. The most troubling footage, however, showed monkeys waiting along the roadside as buses passed, seemingly expecting food from passengers. If such interactions are becoming common, they suggest that some wildlife may be gradually becoming habituated to humans.

Wildlife should never associate roads or vehicles with food. When animals begin waiting beside roads for passing vehicles, the risk of vehicle collisions increases, natural movement and foraging patterns are disrupted, and dependence on human-provided food may gradually develop. Roads through protected areas should provide safe access for visitors and not become feeding grounds that alter the behavior and survival of the wildlife they are meant to protect.

This is not just about visitor manners; it is a real conservation problem.

Wild animals have adapted over thousands of years to live in their natural homes. They know how to find food, avoid danger, and keep their environment balanced. When people feed wildlife, even if they mean well, it changes these natural behaviors. Animals might start relying on people, gather near roads instead of searching for food, face more risk from cars, spread diseases more easily, and lose their fear of humans. These changes can harm not just single animals, but whole populations over time.

Protected areas around the world have learned this lesson. National parks in the United States, Canada, Kenya, South Africa, and Australia all ban feeding wildlife because it causes real harm. Ethiopia should keep building on these conservation practices to protect its unique plants and animals.

Bale Mountains National Park is known worldwide for its ecological value. It has the largest group of endangered Ethiopian wolves, one of the rarest canids on earth. The park also protects mountain nyala, Bale monkeys, giant mole-rats, many unique birds, and rare plants. These animals are not just symbols of Ethiopia’s rich wildlife; they are key parts of healthy ecosystems.

Tourism is important. It creates jobs, helps local businesses, brings in money for conservation, and shows the world Ethiopia’s amazing landscapes. But tourism must be sustainable. Visitors should leave with great memories, not with impacts that change animal behavior or harm delicate ecosystems.

Responsible tourism and effective conservation can coexist. Achieving this balance: Responsible tourism and effective conservation can go hand in hand. Achieving this balance requires commitment from government agencies, tour operators, researchers, local communities, and visitors alike. In National Park:

• Enforce a strict prohibition on feeding wildlife, supported by consistent penalties.
• Install multilingual educational signs explaining why feeding animals is harmful.
• Require conservation briefings for all visitors before entering the park.
• Restrict camping to designated areas away from ecologically sensitive habitats.
• Limit visitor numbers in fragile areas during peak seasons.
• Increase the number of trained park rangers to monitor tourism activities.
• Establish and enforce minimum viewing distances between visitors and wildlife.
• Apply speed limits and wildlife crossing protections on roads within the park.
• Strengthen partnerships with universities and conservation organizations to monitor the impacts of wildlife and tourism.
• Expand environmental education programs for local communities, schools, and visitors to encourage responsible stewardship.

Protecting Bale Mountains National Park is not just up to the government. Every visitor, tour operator, photographer, researcher, and citizen has a part to play. Respecting wildlife means watching animals without bothering them, keeping a safe distance, never feeding them, throwing away trash properly, and leaving the park as you found it.

Conservation does not mean stopping people from enjoying nature. It means making sure everyone can experience nature without taking away from future generations.

Ethiopia’s biodiversity is one of our nation’s greatest treasures. Once ecosystems are degraded or species disappear, recovery is often slow, difficult, or even impossible. The choices we make today will determine whether future generations inherit thriving wildlife and healthy ecosystems or only memories and photographs of what once existed.

Bale Mountains National Park is far more than a destination for visitors it is a priceless national legacy and a living sanctuary that reflects Ethiopia’s unique natural heritage. The true measure of our love for Ethiopia is not only in celebrating its history and culture but also in protecting the landscapes and wildlife that make our country extraordinary. Let us safeguard Bale Mountains National Park with scientific stewardship, responsible tourism, and a shared commitment to conservation, ensuring that it remains a vibrant sanctuary for generations to come.