Oromo traditional attitudes towards the environment have enabled the Oromo to consider themselves as part of the natural environment and take care of it. It is believed that the Earth is the mother of all living things and demands a proper care. The rational behind Oromo traditional religion has important message for modern environmental ethicists. In many respects, Oromo traditional religion is environmentally friendly, and fosters positive relationship with the environment. The preceding discussion makes it clear that for the Oromo, land is not only a resource for man's utilitarian ends, but also it needs care because it has been given to them by their ancestors, and has its own value given to it by Waaqa. Accordingly, the present generation is obliged to preserve it and hand it over to the future generation. The essence of this religious tradition is to live in partnership with the natural environment. It should be stated that this harmony with the natural environment does not rule out the fact that the Oromo have been using it. The fact of the matter is that most of the Oromo people do not abuse nature's generosity by consuming more than what is needed. The Oromo thus believe that the natural environment and human beings are linked together in a web of relationships. There is no unbridgeable gap between humans and supra-humans, Waaqa and the Earth.
It is worth noting that although the Jewish and Christian doctrine of creation is presented as one of the major causes of the present ecological crisis (White 1994), some churches in the West call for a relationship of respect and care for nature and ecological system in the last quarter of the twentieth century. I think this is a promising move and conform to the general principle of Oromo religion. As Attfield suggested, "[i]n the United States, most of the Churches are nowadays strongly environmentalist and strong enough to exercise considerable political influence, and even philosophers and ethicists committed to the independence of ethics from religion may need to take all this into account, if only in pragmatic grounds" (Attfield 1998, 79). Therefore, the dialogue between traditional and modern religion can serve as the basis for constructive borrowing to the benefit of both the local people and modern environmental theorists.
It has been shown that peasants in the study sites have perfected indigenous methods of environmental protection through their prolonged struggle with their natural environment. Generally, peasants have been sharp-eyed, open-minded, experimentally oriented and innovative producers. They do not merely transmit ancient traditions from one generation to another generation. They observe, experiment, interpret, and evaluate their own traditions and externally borrowed practices and traditions. In some instances, peasants who live on and by the land are more knowledgeable than modern technocrats about the natural environment. As has been indicated earlier, there are a wide variety of indigenous experts in the fields of agriculture, medicine, climate and so forth.
Not all practices of peasants are environmentally friendly. Some practices should be changed in order to avoid their negative effects on the natural environment. The negative attitude towards women and the attempt to exploit the people in the name of Oromo traditional religion are so destructive and must be changed. To put matters another way, certainly Oromo environmental knowledge is capable of improvement. The possibility of such improvement requires the cooperation of peasants, intellectuals, and government.
Maximum attention should be given to knowledge and skills of peasants in conservation and natural processes in order to promote environmentally sound development. I sincerely think that promoting maximum self-reliance, economic and political control, and environmental sustainability can revitalize local economies. Without the transfer of power and wealth to the rural poor, it will be difficult to avoid environmental degradation and promote conservation based development in the world in which the international political economic system is committed to growth and great inequality.
I would like to argue that peasants should play a role in environmental protection and development efforts. Only by involving peasants at the grassroots level will we have the political strength and will to implement serious changes needed to address serious environmental and developmental problems. Peasants should be encouraged to use appropriate and alternative technologies, renewable resources, organic farming practices rather than chemical based agriculture, drought resistant and the most productive species, and perennial herbaceous vegetation, to maintain biodiversity, adopt new varieties, improve indigenous environmental science and to manage their bees in a more efficient way than with the traditional fixed-comb hives and thereby optimize yields of honey and beeswax. I am not suggesting that indigenous practices should be romanticized and maintained forever. Rather I would like to underline that we can make use of environmentally friendly indigenous practices.
This study also suggests that those peasants who are exemplary in the area of environmental protection should be given remuneration by the government and possible donors. They should be given the chance to visit peasants in other places to improve their knowledge through mutual exchange. On top of that, the government should financially and technically support peasants to conduct their own research on their environment and to use the land and trees. Modern scientists with varied backgrounds can join peasants who have multidimensional knowledge of the natural environment. Thus the establishment of a research oriented traditional institution is imperative in Ethiopia. Bejing's Institute of Indigenous Medicine and New Center for Ayurvedi Medicine are the two examples outside Africa. Also, the Nigerian Association of Medical Herbalists (NAMH) and the African Traditional Medical Association (ATMA) in Nigeria have played a considerable role in improving traditional medicine. They teach individuals and issue a fellowship certificate to distinguished herbalists (Makinde 1988, 104-105). The law should support the achievements of peasants. That means, the principle of intellectual property rights should be revised and involve all kinds of knowledge.
This study suggests that we can overcome the dichotomy between indigenous and modern environmental knowledge. It gives the clue that the combination of indigenous and modern environmental knowledge may facilitate cross-cultural understanding and thereby enhance the process of development and local and global environmental management. I would argue that the kind of ethic embodied in indigenous beliefs and values does not contradict the kind of ethic found in modern beliefs and values. But these kinds of ethic complement each other, and in some instances one is superior to the other.
Indigenous systems of production and environmental protection need to be integrated into food and environmental policies in Ethiopia. Isolated attempt of the rural poor or modern technicians and environmental theorists alone hardly avoid threats to the environment. Thus, I would argue that peasants' knowledge should be linked with modern science and technology. To achieve this, all parties should avoid prejudices. Prejudices can be blinding or enabling.
This study specifically recommends further investigation of indigenous environmental ethic in Oromiya in particular and in Ethiopia in general.
