Ethiopia's Gibe III Dam: Sowing Hunger and Conflict

Date: 
Wednesday, January 26, 2011

Updated factsheet

The Omo River is a lifeline for hundreds of thousands of indigenous people in southwest Ethiopia and northern Kenya. The Gibe III Hydropower Dam, now under construction, will dramatically alter the Omo River's flood cycle, affecting ecosystems and livelihoods all the way down to the world's largest desert lake, Kenya’s Lake Turkana. The Lower Omo Valley, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, is home to an estimated 200,000 agro-pastoralists from eight distinct indigenous peoples who depend on the Omo River’s annual flood to support river-bank cultivation and grazing lands for livestock.



 

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