In the face of mounting environmental crisis, instituting a viable environmental governancernsystem has been one of the arduous challenges in the context of developing countries likernEthiopia. The objective of this PhD dissertation was to explore the political economy ofrnenvironmental policy and governance in Ethiopia with a focus on historical trends, actors,rnand drivers. Being a macro level policy research, the study was based on data collected fromrnweredas purposively selected from four regions namely Oromia, Southern Regional State,rnAmhara, and Addis Ababa city. A mixed research design was employed whereby most of thernstudy objectives were based on bulk of in depth qualitative data generated from communities,rnexperts, government officials, and the private sector, which was also complemented by arnrange of archival data and policy review. Household survey data was collected from 402rnsubjects. The findings have shown that environmental policy and governance in pre-1991rnEthiopia had been characterized by a narrow view that equated environment as synonymousrnwith land based resources, which has had a detrimental effect on the institutionalization ofrnenvironmental mandates, approach of governance and conservation of environmentalrnresources until today. Since 1992, the country has attained a holistic view ofrnenvironmentalism with formulation of comprehensive environmental policy, and institutedrnnumerous environmental regulatory bodies consistent with the changing narrative in policyrnconceptualization. However, the policy implementation has been under the influence ofrnhistorical legacies in many aspects. Thus, top-down approach of planning, state centric actorrnrole and lack of defined modality to engage non state actors, and asymmetry in rural urbanrndichotomy manifested with inclination towards conservation of land based resources whilernneglecting urban environmental protection are some of the major drawbacks. Despiternproliferation of environmental institutions, the influence of agriculture sector over theserninstitutions has still been prevalent resulting in a meagre executive attention and support.rnWhile environmental security is seriously threatened by poorly planned and rarely regulatedrninitiation of development projects, compliance to environmental laws is highly compromisedrnnot only by the private sector, but also by the public sector, too. The quantitative findingsrnrevealed that the current governance practice was found to be ineffective, falling below thernaverage threshold value. On top of this, environmental governance is significantlyrndetermined by sex, marital status, occupation, role in community, agro-ecology, availabilityrnof benefit sharing schemes and access to forest resources. An investigation of localrncommunity role in park governance has also shown that adherence to the fortress model hasrnbeen posing a threat to the overriding conservation objective. In general, Ethiopiaâ€™srnenvironmental governance, despite its success in achieving broad based policies, has beenrnsuffering from practical ineffectiveness, poor policy implementation exacerbated byrndominance of agriculture sector and weak institutional existence at lower levels. It isrnsuggested that there is a need to make a balance between growth and environmental carernthrough freeing environmental regulatory institutions from the influence of agriculture sectorrnand other executive branches; creating law based platform for engagement of non-staternactors; and making a shift from top-down approach of governance to application ofrnparticipatory modes which engage local communities.