© Numero Unoma
In an era when everyone is throwing the term diversity ‘upandan’ the place, let’s take a look today at a different kind of diversity, and furthermore, let’s consider how it relates to demographic diversities.
Biodiversity is a term that apparently was first coined only as recently as 1985. Who knew?
But what does it actually mean? Biodiversity refers to the chains that interlink all units of life, including flora and fauna, but not forgetting micro-organisms (which by the way do not include viruses, which are considered to be non-living). The smallest units are genes, then you have species, then you have communities of creatures of different species, and at the highest level we have ecosystems, where these communities live in symbiotic reciprocation with their environment. An examples of an ecosystem in Nigeria would be our mangrove swamps, which have animals and plants that benefit each other, as well as also benefitting the environment with coastal defence and pollution reduction. In another example, if you fell too many forest trees, it will expose the earth to heat, and rainfall, as well as deprive several species of animals, plants and fungi of their habitat, which in turn might cause insects to lose their habitat, and therefore in return other plants may not be pollinated, and will therefore not produce fruits. A cycle of loss and destruction can be ignited by just one act of violence against the delicate balance of an ecosystem. It is the give and take factor of successful ecosystems that maintains the equilibrium that makes life possible on earth, and it has taken millions of years to evolve. If you take out one cog in the machine, the whole engine grinds to a halt. To use a pan-African concept, biodiversity is very similar to Ubuntu, in the sense of the interdependence of our existence, where any one species (or person) only exists because of the existence of the other(s).
Let me break it down some more. Food chains are a natural order of survival. Every creature is in some way useful to the existence of at least one more creature, and is also a crucial component of the environment in which all flora and fauna exist and survive. So the chicken eats the worm, and the human eats the chicken, and when the human dies, the worm eats the human. That’s just one simple cycle, though biodiversity is a complex and compounded mass of intersectionality.
What does all this have to do with the price of garri, you ask? Loads.
In the last 50 years we have lost 50% of the entire animal population on earth, for example, only 3% of Asia’s tigers have survived this period. Mind boggling, if you ask me. Scientists tell us that there have been 5 mass extinctions on earth, caused by things like massive volcanic activity, an ice age, or the impact of a meteorite. They are now predicting a 6th one that will be blamed entirely on the human race and its activities on the planet. We have so upset the ecological balance that only an estimated 3% of vertebrate creatures on the planet today are wild, apparently the other 97 % are humans and their farm animals. I guess our pets, whose US population has quadrupled in the last few decades, will also fall into that category.
The underlying causes of the decline in biodiversity are getting stronger every year. These are mainly loss of habitat, over-exploitation, and of course climate change. While loss of habitat is caused by things like mineral exploitation, urbanisation and industrialisation, the main thing that leads to it right now is agriculture. Experts project that I the next 30 years, almost 90% of animals species will lose some of their habitat to agriculture. We haven’t even begun to talk about the plant species, and therefore the birds and insects and invertebrates as well. We humans are destroying entire ecosystems just to overfeed ourselves. At the same time soil quality in over-cultivated countries means that humans are eating less healthy food.
Call me a conspiracy theorist if you wish, but why are we not making the connections between things like the large-scale industrial farming that is destroying habitats as well as the environment itself, without reducing overall hunger in the world, or food security for any more than just a few countries, and the low food quality that equals Big Pharma profits. Why are we not questioning the link between lack of food security and arms industry profits? Why are we not asking ourselves FOR WHAT we are destroying our ecosystems, biodiversity, environment and climate? Or questions like is the cost (not monetary) going to be for the greater good, or for just the profits of a few? Europeans are coming increasingly to Africa to wreck our environment for their food security, while at the same time edging African farmers out of the market. Given what we now know about the effects of the destruction of the environment and biodiversity, why are we allowing them bring all the wrong technology to our continent, from heavy duty machinery to GMO crops for which they hold patents? And what about the tons of food wasted each year?
Africans have always been farmers, and we did not begin to starve until Europeans brought colonisation and heavy armoury wars to our continent. Nor did we have wildlife extinction issues before caucasians and the Chinese came to kill off animals wastefully for things like their tusks or trophy heads for their walls. Granted, we’ve had our fair share of natural disasters like floods, droughts and tectonic events, but we and our ecosystems have always recovered relatively well from these, and have continued to thrive in their aftermath.
Today we are one of the least industrialised regions of the world (something to thank God for on one side of the debate, believe it or not), and yet we pay the highest price for the industrialisation of the west, in the form of climate change, pollution, loss of biodiversity and the poverty that is a direct consequence of the overexploitation of our natural resources BY OTHERS, which has been going on for hundreds of years.
Given that Africa has one of the most youthful populations on the planet, why do we allow the West to shut down the voices of our youths when they stand beside privileged white youth, who do not even pay any real price for their privilege? Like at Davos 2020.
Without any input from anyone outside our continent, why are WE not galvanising the intellectual and technocratic talents I have so often heard speak at the AU, to make proactive implementations, after they analyse problems, make projections and proffer solutions.
We know that the Global North does not want us in their countries, it has never been harder to get a visa for travel than now. Should we not clean up our back yard so that the children we have so lustfully brought into the world, stand a fighting chance in the future that we will leave them to contend with?
Our very survival is dependent on biodiversity. This means that we in Nigeria must follow in the footsteps of countries like Zimbabwe, whose animal populations have been restored, and forest conservation initiatives use indigenous knowledge systems. There is Gabon, whose coastline New Ocean Reserve has a network of MPAs (Marine Protected Areas). The greatest of kudos to Botswanans, who have reserved more than 25% of their land area for parks and other reserves, and of course Namibia, whose laws protect the environment in its constitution.
Thanks to the ACF (African Conservation Foundation), in Nigeria the gorillas of Cross River are being saved from extinction. But many will say who cares about gorillas, when humans are starving? Well if you think we are suffering now, try to imagine a life in which biodiversity has been decimated to the effect that the weather is permanently extremely hot and dry, but on the rare occasion of it raining, it leads to severe flooding. Imagine a world where there is acute food scarcity, compounded by an ever increasing inability to grow food or rear animals, a world where the air and water are polluted, and the Global North is no longer granting visas to Africans.
No, that is not a futuristic science fiction movie, it will be our reality in just a few decades if we continue the way we are going today.
If we do not train young thinkers and raise young voices to begin tackling these issues RIGHT NOW, at the rate we are going Africa will be so in need of help that recolonisation will be inevitable.
Mothers and Fathers of Nigeria, let us support the Vanessa Nakates of our country and continent to do better where we have admittedly not ever done enough. Every wealthy family can comfortably contribute a relatively small amount per annum toward saving our biodiversity. What say you, Femi Otedola et al?