1

The wish is that environmental protection be A future of non-carbon energy is a necessity
a permanent individual and collective and realizable possibility. Add Mugambi

responsibility for African intellectuals and all (2001) “we can make changes in the ways that
human community. Using conceptual tools, we live which will help to create the healthy
environmental, management and theological and sustainable communities”. Human
critical analysis, it can allow showing how societies change the chemical composition of
well concepts such as politics, economy, war, the atmosphere by the excessive use of fossil
culture, technology, urbanization, fuels. Various gases with greenhouse effect, the
globalization, and theology are linked to carbon dioxide (CO²) have the greatest impact.
ecology, which means the relationships The CO² is produced by the burning fossil fuels
between them and the surrounding nature. to produce the energy for electricity, industry
Consequently, African intellectuals and and transport. Mugambi (2001) suggests
different theologians need also to take into further that to leave this environmental
account and help observe ecological norms in destruction, “the principalities and powers of
the fulfillment of their world mission. Affirm this world will have to reconsider their
Mugambi (2001) “human beings and nature as exercise of clout and of influence, so that they
such are valuable and deserve to survive”. may become leaders in the moral and
Therefore, global and local actors must take theological sense, rather than masters and
appropriate responsibility in order to ensure tyrants in the economic and political sense,
the ecological balance that will sustain life on respectively”. Hence, ethical and moral norms
this planet. can be applied to the macroeconomy and
The goal of the protection of environment is to micro-economics, because the moral and
support the health of the humankind and the spiritual values form the base no matter what
rest of nature in their respective habitations. people make in the economic and political
However, the threat of the climate change sciences.
challenges all Africans to seek ways to live in
order to stabilize the concentrations of CO² in
the atmosphere.
Environmental History of Africa:
Environmental history has a long Also, environmental historians of Africa show
tradition of using interdisciplinary approaches that vegetation; rocks, disease and climate have Vimbai C. Kwashirai Georg Foster Senior Research
and has built on connections and interactions dynamics of their own and are not only Fellow; Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, University
between history, geography, archaeology and the important background for social history but form Duisburg-Essen, Faculty of Humanities, History Institute,
natural sciences. Environmental historians have an intrinsic part of it. 45117 Essen, Germany
also begun to engage with concepts and Resources were managed on a common property
approaches developed in cultural and literary basis, either community or ethnically based. Land
was generally communally owned by all people purpose of environmental
studies. In the past, environmental history drew
heavily on archival research, oral history and but vested in the king or chief who held it in trust Preservations AND HEALTH
detailed field investigations of environmental of the people. Rulers oversaw the distribution and
INITIATIVES IN africa:
practices and their outcomes. Other studies draw allocation of land to individuals for homesteads
on such sources combining them with methods and plots. Individual families retained usufruct Ethiopian Journal of Environmental Studies and
that explore African beliefs, concepts, myths, rights on allocated land provided they did not Management Vol.2 No.3 2009
legends and literary narratives, landscape display political disloyalty, migrate, commit a
perceptions, colonial and wildlife photography. legal offence or violate conservation laws. AFRICAN HEALTH INITIATIVE:
The use of diverse source material has been Likewise, all trees, wildlife and water belonged to
https://www.ddcf.org/what-we-fund/african-health-
accompanied by detailed social and cultural the whole community. Forests were viewed as
wilderness, where all had equal access to collect
initiative/
perspectives on environmental control and
change. One set of approaches to environmental the multiple forest products on which indigenous
history concerns itself with physical processes of material culture was based. Core settlement areas
environmental change, making evaluations on and urban areas with denser populations made
whether or not environmental change has taken common property management vulnerable to
place and whether such transformation was deforestation and erosion. The resource shortages
beneficial or detrimental. Some evaluate change associated with high population densities created
in terms of human social welfare; others do so by competition and tensions that local institutions
measurements and valuations of biodiversity, and mechanisms often failed to resolve and could
vegetation cover and soil erosion. Yet others are lead to a breakdown in local resource
wary of such judgments and discuss historical management. Peasants generally observed
debates about degradation as contradictory cultural values, fears and superstitions that
narratives reflecting different perspectives. deterred them from breaching laws pertaining to
However, the multi – historical sources are environmental control.
invariably culturally and politically embedded.

1

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

1

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Description:

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

1

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

The wish is that environmental protection be A future of non-carbon energy is a necessity

a permanent individual and collective and realizable possibility. Add Mugambi

You might also like