Solving Environmental Harms through an African Model of Environmental Justice

"Johannesburg, South Africa" by The World Wants a Real Deal is licensed under Creative Commons BY-NC-SA 2.0.

Africa’s underdevelopment and developmental challenges are well documented and known to most. Some of these appear to be real challenges that have become persistent and seemingly insurmountable.

The developmental woes of the continent span from a lack of proper basic infrastructure to high levels of poverty and ever-growing national debts. The situation presents socio-economic injustices, which for many years have not been fully addressed despite the application of varying economic policies and direct interventions from development partners and agencies. 

But there is another kind of injustice which, until quite recently, was barely discussed. This injustice is environmental injustice. There is an urgent need to point our attention to matters of environmental injustice and their effect on the current generation and future generations if we are to be serious about addressing Africa’s developmental woes.

This is particularly important for developing African nations because there is a great tendency for African leaders to over-exploit the continent’s natural resources as a solution to the development gaps and lapses they face without considering issues of environmental sustainability and justice. Africans need to seriously consider the ethical and just usage of their natural resources to benefit current and future generations.

This is not only an issue of sustainable development, but also essentially borders on environmental justice, and by extension social, cultural, and health justice. 

The phraseology, environmental justice, has only been in formal usage for three decades, but what it represents has been in existence for a very long time, perhaps at the very beginning of modern capitalism. Nations’ goals to industrialise and provide socio-economic amenities together with the emergence of new technologies meant that some parts of the natural environment need to be utilised to meet growing needs.

Today, natural resources have been overused to the extent that we are beginning to observe the negative impact it is having on the earth across the globe, from the loss of some plant and animal species (biodiversity loss) to a total reduction of global forest size. Today, we are experiencing the devastating effects of global warming: climate change has led to wildfires, floods, hurricanes, and droughts, making the poor worse off and creating a new global challenge of climate migrants.

With resources now scarce and the world being more conscious of environmental protection, there is a need to ensure fair use of these resources. This is where environmental justice comes in.

Environmental justice is often defined as the fair treatment and meaningful involvement of all people regardless of race, colour, national origin, or income concerning the development, implementation and enforcement of environmental laws, regulations, and policies. Fair treatment means that no group of people should bear a disproportionate share of the negative environmental consequences resulting from industrial, governmental, and commercial operations or policies.

Environmental injustice is not removed from economic exploitation, race and gender subordination, the marginalisation of children, the elderly, immigrants, and persons with disabilities, as well as the ongoing dispossession of Indigenous peoples, and the colonial and postcolonial domination of the Global South. Government responsibilities to defend and respect all aspects of environmental human rights are essential to achieving environmental and climate justice. 

In recent years, the adverse effects of activities of ‘illegal’ mining, known in local parlance as galamsey, on the natural environment have peaked so much that illegal mining has become a serious topic of discussion in the Ghanaian political and media spaces. The continuous unguarded activities of these ‘illegal’ miners have led to the muddying and sometimes the drying up of major rivers and streams that serve as sources of drinking water for the local people. It has also led to the destruction of forests and farmlands and in some places the permanent destruction of the natural topography.

The calamitous effects of these illegal mining activities are so vivid that some civil societies have described it as an existential problem, especially when it appears the government is losing the fight against it. It is often rumoured that that these illegal mining activities are financed by the affluent who live comfortably in big cities without directly bearing the disastrous environmental and health consequences of these activities. This presents a case of environmental injustice which, if left unchecked, could lead to a dire future for both current and future generations.

“We ought to create and empower more of these civil society groups at the very local level to ensure that all members of society are behaving ethically, responsibly, and sustainably, and that those who are disadvantaged are duly compensated.”

The eco-collective responsibility theory suggests that the environment is a public good whose resources ought to be enjoyed by all without discrimination. Proponents of this theory, through conceptual analyses, make a case for a reorientation of what they assume to be our moral responsibility towards the environment and sense of environmental justice using indigenous African values and practices toward the environment. 

Africa’s traditional relationship with nature entails a recognition from men and women of the importance of water, air, and land management. The ethics of not taking more than you need is a moral code and the earth, forests, rivers, wind, and other natural objects are believed to be both natural and divine.

Africans seek to exist side-by-side and peacefully with nature and treat it with judicious concern for its worth, survival and sustainability. Again, the African traditional viewpoint is more cosmically humble, more respectful of other people, and more cautious in its attitude to plants, animals, and inanimate things and to the various invincible forces in the world. 

An important virtue within the eco-collective responsibility theory, is that the consumption of these environmental resources must come with a collective duty of care for these resources.

Furthermore, collective responsibility towards the environment should be analysed from a local community level. Existing civil society groups need to be more vocal. We ought to create and empower more of these civil society groups at the very local level to ensure that all members of society are behaving ethically, responsibly, and sustainably, and that those who are disadvantaged are duly compensated.

In conclusion, issues in environmental ethics and justice are not and cannot be the pillars of Africa’s development agenda. Instead, they ought to be the core foundation upon which all other pillars, or any development model stands. The absence of this foundation could lead to a gloomy future for the continent.