Reconciling Development Infrastructure and Heritage Protection, Through Heritage Impact Assessments: A Case Study of the UNESCO World Heritage Site of the Omo Valley of Ethiopia

Abstract

Development infrastructure and heritage protection are equally important to many societies and countries in the world. Therefore, it is vital to reconcile both needs of development infrastructure and heritage protection through methods of heritage impact assessment (HIA) conducted using International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS) guidelines. The UNESCO World Heritage Site of the Omo valley of Ethiopia is home to various palaeontological, archaeological and paleoanthropological records and, hence, has huge significance to the world as well as to Ethiopia. A road construction designed to pass through the Shungura Formation in the UNESCO World Heritage Site of the Omo valley of Ethiopia poses a serious problem to the heritage site, and an HIA was conducted to investigate thoroughly the impacts of the road construction on the heritage site. The ICOMOS guideline is a useful tool to carry out HIA, and it is used as a guiding method to conduct the HIA. In order to assess the impacts, data from the key attributes of the heritages were collected; these data are faunal fossils, archaeological records such as stone tools and geological exposures used to date fossils. These are the features that make the heritage site significant, and concentrations of these data from 4 m by 4 m gridded areas are assessed through ICOMOS guidelines, and high concentrations of faunal fossils and archaeological records are found in the areas where the road construction was designed to pass. The impacts of the road construction on the key attributes of the heritage vary from adverse effects (A1 and A4) to severe adverse effects (A2 and A3). Therefore, the road construction design Alt-00 adversely affects the heritage-bearing Shungura Formation which hosts the key attributes of the heritages in the Omo valley of Ethiopia. Following the results of this HIA, an alternative road construction design Alt-03 was suggested, and the new road construction design is adopted by the Ethiopian Road Authority. This particular study from the Omo valley of Ethiopia has played a significant role in saving the heritage sites and has also important implications in balancing the needs of heritage protection and development infrastructure to other parts of the country and elsewhere in the world, and it is a good contribution to future research related to heritages and impacts of development infrastructures.