THE CONTRIBUTIONS OF RELIGION IN THE DEPLETION OF THE AFRICAN ENVIRONMENT AND IN RECOVERING THE AFRICAN ENVIRONMENTAL INTEGRITY

Abstract

This work is a comparative analysis of the connections and disconnections between Africans and their environment from a religious perspective considering two moments. The first is the period before the invasion by foreign religions and the second is the period when African Traditional Religion has almost been decimated. The work is based on the observation that the African environment is degrading and depleting. It builds on the hypothesis that results from environmental abuse and that religion played a great role in maintaining the ecosystem of the African environment of the past. Today foreign religions have overtaken the continent and there is disconnect between the adherents of these religions and the African environment. The work studies the place of the environment in the former religious sensibilities of the African and places it side by side the connection between the modern foreign religions and the environment. The degradation of the environment is one of the major challenges for human beings globally.The United Nations International Strategy for Disaster Reduction captures environmental degradation as the reduction of the extent to which the earth could meet social and environmental purposes and needs. This degradation actively takes place in practically every little space in the world in as much as the extents to which they are felt vary. Ronaldo Wee had observed:“Human impact is the deciding factor that limits environmental sustainability in all its aspects.â€1In Africa, it is human beings who contribute 95% of the environmental issues that bedevil the continent more than nature. The ill-treatment or otherwise of the environment is not as a result of their hatred for it, but a skewed understanding of it and an acquired attitude of exploitation and manipulation of it. The work posits that it is religion more than anything else which reneged on the sacredness of the African environment and bred Africans who treat the environment irreverently. The work adopted the method of participant observation and contextual analysis of physical data. The area of study is Igbo land and references will be made to areas under coverage.