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Chapter 1: Pre-colonial Environmental Conservation and Management Strategies in Africa: A Brief Overview
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3 Chapter 1 Pre-colonial Environmental Conservation and Management Strategies in Africa: A Brief Overview Introduction It is an undeniable historical fact that with the advent of colonialism and the influence of Western ‘civilization’ in Africa, the Africans’ daily practices, knowledge systems, values, needs, relationships with the environment, experiences and way of life in general were significantly transformed. Surprisingly, although several scholars have explored environmental management and conservation problems in Africa, they have ignored to study how colonialism impacted on environment related issues, and to argue for the reinstitution of Africa’s indigenous philosophies such as ubuntu/unhu [or hunhu] in environmental conservation and management issues in present day Africa. Despite the fact that European imperialists used the discourses of modernity, commerce and civilization (among others) to dominate Africa, Western scientific knowledge was also used to dislodge African societies’ environment conservation and management systems through subjugation and domination. The period of subjugation and domination of the African continent by Europe started in the late 15th century and reached its climax during the late 19th century. During this period, conservation and management methodologies and strategies of the indigenous African peoples were despised, suppressed and dominated by those of the European settlers 4 who perceived themselves as superior to Africans in all positive respects. Thus, though it is widely agreed that precolonial Africans were civilized (in their own respect) many years before the advent of colonialism and were indeed great environment care givers who lived at peace with other beings in the environment they shared, few scholars have captured such big realities. Notable of these scholars is H. N. Hemans (1935: 121-2), a Native Commissioner in colonial Rhodesia who in describing the environmental friendly agricultural practices of the Tonga people inhabiting the Zambezi valley commented: “After the Zambezi valley has been down in flood, which is generally in May, and directly the waters start to subside, the fresh alluvium is assiduously cultivated and followed down foot by foot to the usual water level. Here they plant principally tobacco and maize, the former being as a rule planted first. Each family has its own allotment neatly fenced off with reeds ... in fact a famine on the Zambezi is almost unknown”. Similar observations (particularly those to do with African civilization) have been recorded by scholars such as Nemavhandu (2002) and Molefi K. Asante (2000). In his book, The philosophers of Egypt..., Asante, for example, notes that some more than 2100 years before civilization in Greece, Africans in Egypt and many other nations of the Nile and the Great Lakes of the region were already engaged in the creative genius of astronomy, philosophy, religion, mathematics, rhetoric, agriculture, engineering, law, architecture, physical training, art, music, geology, logic, liberal arts and medicine. This is echoed by Nemavhandu (2002: 2) who argues that “the Greek plagiarism of African science, philosophy and religion can be proven beyond any reasonable doubt” as Egypt was the greatest educational [3.231.3.140] Project MUSE (2024-03-29 10:17 GMT) 5 centre in the ancient world. This entails that the claim by many Eurocentric historians and anthropologists that Africa was a dark continent whose civilisation and sense of environmental conservation were brought about by the West are examples of this plagiarism and misrepresentation of Africa. In fact, some well-known Western philosophers like Pythagoras, Euclid and Aristotle, among others, obtained most of their knowledge from Egypt’s Sacred Mystery Schools which in fact were the first universities known to the human race. These schools included the Grand Lodge of Luxor (Waart) which was built by Pharaoh Amonithes III in Thebes city which was located along the River Nile banks. This was one of the greatest schools in the world were great men and women were never considered properly educated unless they passed through this academy. The claim that civilisation, including the notion of sustainable environmental conservation, was brought to Africa by Europe despises logic given that the first civilized Europeans were Greeks who themselves were civilized by Africans. Nemavhandu (ibid: 5) captures this well when he argues: ‘The first civilized Europeans were the Greeks, who were chiefly civilised by the Africans of the Nile valley. The Greeks transmitted this culture to the Romans, who finally lost it, bringing on a dark age of five hundred years. Civilisation was restored to Europe when another group of Africans, the Moors, brought this dark age to an end’. I should underscore the point that the indigenous peoples of Africa shared almost the same...