Traditional African Environmental Ethics and Colonial Legacy

Concerns have been raised about environmental problems in Africa. I argue that these environmental problems did not exist prior to colonialism because traditional Africans had conservationist values, moral attitudes, practices, and ways of life. I articulate African thoughts on ontology, cosmology, traditional medicine and healing, and religious practices that supported their conservationist moral values and attitudes. Many of these traditional conservationist values, ways of life, and moral attitudes were destroyed by the exploitative ethos of European colonialism and modernity. I show how the colonial social structures left behind still continue to engender and contribute to the environmental problems in Africa today.