The rehabilitation of indigenous environmental ethics in Africa.

Introduction

This article examines the rehabilitation of an indigenous environmental ethic and indigenous environmental ethics in Africa. It seeks to provide an understanding of how the many culture-specific African societies view their relationship to the natural world. It aims to contribute to the articulation of environmental ethics grounded in indigenous traditions and inspired by broad ecological perspectives. The article begins with a survey of modern environmental ethics. It will then examine indigenous attitudes towards nature in Africa by focusing on the environmental ethics of the Oromo of Ethiopia. The Oromo constitute the largest ethnic group in Ethiopia. The last part provides a general conclusion.

In this article, I use the terms 'indigenous' and 'traditional' (and sometimes 'local') interchangeably to connote something which was created and preserved by previous generations, and has been inherited wholly or partially and further developed by successive generations over the years. Indigenous knowledge is constantly evolving, and involves both old and new ideas and beliefs. The rural people do not slight imported values or stick solely to their ancestral customs. Instead, they have tried to improve their tradition in line with the new circumstances and thereby adapt foreign values to their way of life. Therefore, indigenous knowledge embodies both internally generated and externally borrowed and adapted knowledge. Indigenous knowledge tells us how people conserve trees, revere wild animals and transmit knowledge from one generation to another generation. The term 'an indigenous environmental ethic' is used to mean the set of values and beliefs of an individual or group of people relating to the environment. It involves individual or group attitudes towards the environment. Environmental ethics is the philosophical inquiry into the nature and justification of general claims relating to the environment. It is theory about appropriate concern for, values in and duties to the natural environment and about their application. It is concerned with what the people are committed to do about the natural environment.

Some people might debate whether there is such a thing as indigenous environmental ethics. However, the evidence at our disposal confirms that indigenous knowledge is not just a passing on of folk wisdom in a static way from one generation to the next. Peasant farmers and pastoralists do not passively follow the course of nature. Many peasant farmers and pastoralists critically and rationally evaluate the commonly accepted opinions and practices of their people and thereby develop their own independent views about society and the natural environment. When they are affected by what is going on in the society, they come up with quotable proverbs which originate from their reflective remarks and their thinking about nature. Their view of the value of the natural environment is based on reasoned thought. Accordingly, there are principles of thought (implicit or explicit) in various peasant farmers' and pastoralists' knowledge. It is on this basis that one can talk about indigenous environmental ethics (that is, indigenous theories concerning environmental values and duties) even though one should not claim that peasant farmers and other indigenous people as a whole have developed a system of indigenous environmental ethics. In fact, it would be unrealistic to argue that indigenous environmental ethics and modern environmental ethics have similar status and range of influence. Yet comparisons remain possible and instructive.

In this article, the term 'indigenous environmental ethics' is used sometimes to refer to the ethical views of philosophic sages who have their own independent views, and in most cases it is used as a plural (of 'environmental ethic') to refer to the norms and values of various indigenous peoples. This article aims to develop this idea and show how indigenous environmental knowledge is being rehabilitated in the contemporary world.

Before exploring the rehabilitation of indigenous environmental ethics, I briefly look at the central concerns of modern environmental ethics.

Modern environmental ethics