In Addis Ababa, approximately 35 percent of the household fuelwood – mainly eucalyptus – is systematically gathered from the Entoto Mountains just outside the city.

Ethiopia historically planted large areas with fast-growing eucalyptus, a non-native species, to meet the demand for fuelwood. But the trees’ water-hogging nature has had a destructive impact on the land.

There are efforts to reforest areas with native species, supported by the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, which has a tradition of maintaining tree gardens throughout the country.

ENTOTO, Ethiopia — In a tiny home not far from the U.S. Embassy in Addis Ababa, 80-year-old Aragash Boka finally rests from a long day’s work carrying an awkward, heavy load. Boka lives and works in a corner of the world where, for the most part, fuelwood has remained important to daily life for centuries.

Ethiopia is a vortex of culture and humanity, starting with the fact that it’s home to three of the things humans value the most: faith, fire and coffee. On any given day, Boka is one of thousands of women who walk from the bottom of the outer valleys of their city up the side of the Entoto Mountains to make a living collecting fuelwood.

The women march up to 16 kilometers (10 miles) in search of wood, bark, branches and dried leaves from eucalyptus trees (Eucalyptus globulus), carrying it on their backs to sell as fuelwood — firewood, charcoal and kindling — at market. Average earnings range from $1 to $3 per day.

Since the introduction and initial planting of eucalyptus here in the early 1900s, through to the establishment of large groves seeded en masse by the 1970s, every part of the tree gets harvested primarily for fuel or building. Though the tree isn’t endemic to Africa, it’s taken so well over its short history to the wide-ranging climates of Ethiopia that it’s quietly set up a colony of its own within the economy and ecology of an entire nation.

The fuelwood gatherers of Entoto, like Boka, today find themselves caught in the middle as both the cause and the victims of environmental damage done by a plant so vital to them. With only 2 percent of native forests left in the country, reliance on eucalyptus is key to the nearly 90 percent of households that still use wood as their primary way of cooking and cleaning and warming their homes.

Long History