ENDOGENOUS KNOWLEDGE AND SUSTAINABLE AFRICAN AGRO-ECOLOGICAL HERITAGE RESOURCE

Abstract:

In Africa, the human person is the supreme force, the most powerful and dominant among all created beings. While this decreed power makes the lower beings subservient to humanity, it is only intended to be a source of harmony in the advancement of the hospitality and the joy of the human species. Today however, the traditional lifestyles of Africans are threatened with virtual extinction by insensitive development over which the indigenous peoples have no participation. Africa has not only acquiesced a scientific technology that has developed its own laws far removed from the known system of nature, it has no self-limiting principle in terms of size, speed and violence to nature and humanity. Consequent upon this incongruity, the machine has replaced man thus degrading the ecology and resources necessary for harmonious living. This chapter argues that, African endogenous knowledge is strategic heritage resource to salvage the technologically abused environment for sustainable agro-ecological living. The chapter argues further that African endogenous knowledge system encodes environmental management and policies for resource development in Africa’s complex and ageing ecological system. In doing this, we engage in conversation about current and potential land sovereignty work in African Indigenous communities. This will achieve food security and improved nutrition, promote sustainable agriculture and improved economic status of the African indigenous farmer. We conclude that, in seeking the whole from the units of the earth resources through cultivation of the soil, the African derives high credit balance of spiritual good, virtuous life, self-reliance, courage and moral integrity.