African environmentalism and why role of traditional leaders matter
What you need to know:
Loss of our values. The levels of degradation across the planet were due to several factors, among them, the loss of our values, kindness and generosity to one another.
Fire. Water. These earth elements have in the last few months manifested with such detrimental effects in various corners of the planet. Cyclones Idai and Kenneth – left such devastation in their paths as they swept across Mozambique going further inland to Malawi and Zimbabwe. This July, the world watched in shock as fires raged across the forests of Siberia, a place most imagined as snow-covered, where by the end of the month at least 2.6 million hectares of forest area was ravaged. And then some more. Forests, wetlands, humans, wildlife, livelihoods – lost in such a short span. This picture, is a global picture and certainly an African one. Our landscapes have changed dramatically and at the centre of this change: Humans.
Africa as a continent largely depends on natural resources to drive economies, sustain communities and livelihoods. And during the pre-colonial era, management of natural resources was undertaken via traditional systems of governance – kingdoms, chieftaincies, clans and many others. These traditional systems assisted in tracking the State and taking stock and audits of their natural capital within given precise geographical zones. One need not go far, but look at the royal emblems across Africa – each adorned either by or a combination of animals, birds, trees and products of these. Additionally, clans or totem names also existed and continue to, around names of these natural resources. Women were particularly pivotal in the transfer of indigenous knowledge. And the existence of these traditional systems have continued several hundreds of years later, to this day, across many parts of Africa.
The natural environment provides us with services referred to as ecosystem services such as food, medicines, shelter, fodder for livestock, regulation of the climate and management of floods, among others. However, the mismanagement of our environment resulting in severe degradation, compounded further by climate change, has led to these services being out of balance. How did we get here that our lands are so degraded they have turned into bowls of dust, our wetlands so over-utilised they no longer flood; our soils so compacted that we can no longer grow food and our forests cut down that we have lost the very phyto-pharmacies we have depended on for healing?
On March 1, 2019, the United Nations General Assembly passed a resolution, announcing the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration (2021 – 2030) and such theme for the Global Landscape Forum (GLF) – Accra - centred on restoring Africa’s landscapes.
On October 29, in Accra Ghana, the Nnabagereka (Queen of Buganda), addressed the GLF to speak exactly about these environmental challenges. Speaking to more than 700 participants and over a million streaming live, she applauded the UN for recognising traditional leaders as important non-State actors in the environmental and developmental agendas – central to Sustainable Development. She further shared information of how the king – The Kabaka – has spearheaded environmentalism in his kingdom.
In mid-October while visiting the Vatican to discuss the role of faith leaders in the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration, a priest said something to me that was fundamental. He said the levels of degradation across the planet were due to several factors, among them, the loss of our values, kindness and generosity to one another. He added – the absence of love. Without love, we cannot love the earth.
Ms Mumba, PhD, is the Chief, Terrestrial Ecosystems Unit (TEU), Ecosystems Division, UN Environment. She is also the founder of the Network of African Women Environmentalists (NAWE).
