Popular environmentalist and director of the Health of Mother Earth Foundation (HOMEF), Dr Nnimmo Bassey has urged stakeholders on the African continent to work together to confront the climate catastrophe.
Bassey who made the announcement during a virtual session on the “Political Ecology” School of Ecology series, said that the study of political, economic, and social ties as they interact with environmental problems and changes is political ecology.
He said: “Today’s environmental problems are linked to global political and economic models that are neo-colonial and imperialistic.”
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He explained that the environment is closely related to politics and the economy, which are dominated by businesses that exploit the fossil fuels that contribute to global warming.
“Africa and the global south have been victims of extra activism from the slave trade era when developed countries took advantage of human resources from Africa and the extractive industry modelled to satisfy the energy appetite for developed countries,” Bassey said.
On her part, Ikal Angelei, a Kenyan environmentalist, 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.
Story was adapted from Vanguard.
