African Indigenous Conservative Approach to Environmental Sustainability: Maintaining a Balance within the Blue Economy

Abstract

This paper ethically investigates into how to ensure a balance between wealth creation out of the ocean resources and at the same time maintaining a sustained environment through the introduction of the African indigenous conservative method. The problem of global warming as a result of climate change has, in recent times, shifted the global economic focus from wealth creation through unsustainable means to cleaner, healthier approaches that aim to protect the ecosystem, recognizing human survival’s dependence on it. One of the proposed clean means is the blue economy otherwise called the green economy, blue growth, ocean economy, and ocean sustainability, which is regarded as the sustainable use of ocean resources for wealth creation. However, amidst the optimism surrounding the blue economy, ethical considerations still becomes salient, as it remains imperative to ensure that the pursuit of wealth creation does not come at the expense of further environmental degradation, as that has often been the reality of wealth creation. Thus, through the use of a conceptual and critical analysis methodology, this paper at the end, we conclude that while the clean economy is considered a clean way of creating wealth, it could as well lead to further degradation if care is not taken due to the selfish nature of man and his anthropocentric consciousness, and it would be detrimental if further degradation is birthed through the blue economy. Hence, an ethical consideration is necessary and revered in order to further maintain a sustained environmental condition, of which the African conservative method of preserving the environment best addresses this concern.