African Environmental Ethics

For decades now, experts have studied and documented the severe environmental and land degradation across Africa. However, the nature of the problem has now been ratcheted up by mounting and undisputed scientific evidence demonstrating a clear causal link between tropical deforestation and global climate change. The external observers of the deteriorating African landscape continue to watch in alarm, sometimes heralding a concerted global response. The African environmental “crisis†that once was framed solely in the context of the direct effects of desertification, deforestation and land degradation on African ecosystems, economies and societies, is now in fact unhinged from the location of rapidly advancing desertification and deforestation to a much broader, world-wide crisis. There is now a rapid need for an effective environment ethic hinged on socio-cultural substance which recognize indigenous people, further shape their association with natural habitat. The thrust of this paper is to have a look at African environmental ethics.