A renowned environmentalist, Dr. Nnimmo Bassey, has canvassed solidarity amongst stakeholders across African continent to address climate crisis.
He made the call at a virtual session hosted by Health of Mother Earth Foundation (HOMEF) in its School of Ecology series entitled ‘Political Ecology’.
According to him, political ecology involves the study of the relationships between political, economic, and social factors as they interrelate with environmental issues and changes.
He said: “Today’s environmental problems are linked to global political and economic models that are neo-colonial and imperialistic.”
Bassey, who is HOMEF Executive Director, noted that the environment was intricately linked to politics and the economy dominated by corporations that extract fossil fuels that cause global warming.
“Africa and the global south have been victims of extractivism from the slave trade era when developed countries took advantage of human resources from Africa and the extractive industry modeled to satisfy the energy appetite for developed countries,” Bassey said.
Ikal Angelei, a Kenyan environmentalist in her contribution, dismissed the narrative that retaining natural agroecology practices could lead to food insecurity and insisted that the entry of genetically modified crops has led to a lack of food sovereignty as they had taken away the indigenous crops.
Also speaking, Thuli Makama, an environmental rights lawyer in Swaziland regretted that colonialism had bastardized the human dignity of Africans and advised Africans to take deliberate steps to restore dignity.
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