Journal of African Studies and Sustainable Development

The global environmental crisis, marked by unprecedented rates of biodiversity loss and ecosystem destabilization, is increasingly recognized as a symptom of a fractured relationship between humanity and the biosphere. Western modernity, anchored in the Cartesian epistemology of cogito, ergo sum ("I think, therefore I am"), has propagated a dualistic worldview that bifurcates the human subject from the environment, often treating nature as an object of exploitation. In stark contrast, African philosophy, centered on the Ubuntu ontology of "I am because we are," promotes a relational framework where individual identity is defined through communal and ecological interconnectedness. This paper explores how African Indigenous Knowledge Systems (IKS) and Traditional Medicine (ATM) serve as vital, philosophy-driven pathways for biodiversity conservation. By examining the ontological differences between Western and African worldviews, this article argues that the integration of Ubuntu-based environmental ethics offers a sustainable alternative to the anthropocentric models currently dominating global conservation policy.

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