Manja

The Manja are among the last Indigenous hunter-gatherer communities inhabiting the dense highland forests of southwestern Ethiopia. They self-identify as ‘people of the forest’, reflecting the deep interdependence between their livelihoods, cultural practices and the forest environment. Owing to their small and dispersed settlements located at the margins between farmland and forest, empirical data on the Manja remain extremely limited. Moreover, the existing literature has largely emphasised social stigma with little attention to their hunting traditions and human–environment relations. This study examines Manja hunting practices and patterns of human–environment interaction based on qualitative data collected through in-depth interviews with experienced Manja hunters, complemented by a review of relevant secondary literature. The findings indicate that hunting historically constituted the core subsistence strategy of the Manja. In recent decades, however, this livelihood has declined sharply, compelling the community to diversify into alternative strategies, including small-scale agriculture. Key factors contributing to this decline include rapid deforestation, the establishment of conservation regimes, the expansion of development interventions, and increasing socioeconomic pressures that have encouraged youth migration to nearby urban centres. The ongoing transformation of Manja subsistence – marked by a shift away from hunting toward agriculture and wage-based livelihoods – represents a significant departure from long-standing forager lifeways. This apparent reversal of earlier subsistence trajectories warrants closer scholarly attention, both for understanding contemporary human–environment dynamics and for documenting an increasingly endangered Indigenous cultural tradition.