Bale Mountains National Park (BMNP)

Bale Mountains National Park (BMNP) is a national park in Ethiopia.

The park encompasses an area of approximately 2,150 square kilometres (530,000 acres) in the Bale Mountains and Sanetti Plateau of the Ethiopian Highlands.

The park's Afromontane habitats have one of the highest incidences of animal endemicity of any terrestrial habitat in the world. The park was nominated to the World Heritage Tentative List in 2009.

Bale Mountains National Park is the ultimate destination for hikers, wildlife watchers, culture and nature enthusiasts, bird watchers and more! Explore one of the highest parks in Africa by horseback, go fishing or experience an authentic community trying local coffee and honey! One of the best sites to spot the rare and endangered Ethiopian Wolf is on the spectacular Sanetti Plateau as the sun rises.

In contrast to other parts of Ethiopia, very little was written about the Bale Mountains prior to the 1950s, despite the facts that Goba (a main town within the mountains) was connected to Addis Ababa by a telegraph line in 1931, was served with Ethiopian Airlines DC-3 aircraft prior to the 1950s, and that the brief period of Italian government (1935-1941) reached the region with stations in Goba, Dinsho and Delo-Mena.

As records begin to appear at the beginning of the 20th century, the Bale Mountains were largely uninhabited. The first recorded visit was by the German naturalist and explorer Carlo Von Erlanger who reached the Bale Mountains between 1899 and 1901. During his time in the region, he documented the existence of the giant molerat. Thereafter, a Frenchman, the Vicomte du Bourg, spent two months in Goba in 1901 hunting elephant to the south and traveling around the mountains. He recorded the existence of elephant and buffalo in the Harenna Forest, and commented on the ivory hunting of the area - primarily by mounted horsemen using guns.

Following these early records, there is no information until the late 1950s, when Finnish geographer, Helmer Smels, arrived in Bale. He made three journeys to Bale and crossed the area from Goba, through Rira to Delo-Mena. By the time of his visits, just 50 years after Vicomte du Bourg had noted the presence of elephants, they had disappeared from the Harenna Forest. Smels noted that although the Sanetti Plateau was uninhabited, people drove their cattle to the plateau for grazing during the dry season, sometimes for up to three months. Additionally, the mountains were used for their mineral springs or horas, to which the pastoral people also drove their cattle. People stayed overnight in simple, temporary shelters made of split bamboo. The Harenna Forest was uninhabited but for small groups of temporary huts in some of the clearings where people grazed their cattle for part of the year. Although not dwelling there permanently, honey gatherers have always been active in the Harenna Forest.

During the same period, a British botanist, Herbert Mooney, visited the Harenna Forest and Sanetti Plateau. He noted the growing settlement of Rira within the Harenna Forest and other hamlets of honey gatherers and pastoral people. Although the Harenna Forest was probably quite populated towards the end of the 19th century, the area was depopulated again as a result of a rinderpest epidemic that killed most of the cattle in the early 1890s.

The impetus for the present national park began with two visits to the area in 1963 and 1965 by the British naturalist, Dr. Leslie Brown who was in the area explicitly to assess the status of mountain Nyala. The major recommendation of his visits was that a national park should be established in the Bale Mountains to protect their habitat. John Blower, advisor to the Ethiopian Wildlife Conservation Organization (now Ethiopian Wildlife Conservation Authority (EWCA)) and a Peace Corps volunteer, followed through with Dr. Brown’s recommendation by surveying the area and proposed boundaries of the park. In 1969 the Bale Mountains National Park was established.