Second Renaissance / Ecosystem
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Central Africa,East Africa,Southern Africa,West Africa,Middle East & North Africa

African Biodiversity Network

Detailed profile

https://africanbiodiversity.org/

Location
Thika, Kiambu, kenya
Scale
International
Type
Organization · Association/network/movement
Activities
Advocacy & Organizing, Convening & Coordination, Education, Consulting & Advisory, Research
System focus
Climate, Ecosystems, Food, Community, Policy, Planning & Law
Approach
Agroecology, Food Sovereignty, Indigenous/Traditional Living, Rights of Nature, Adaptation & Resilience
Issues
biodiversity, climate change, land, material resources, communities, environmental justice, governance, social justice, human rights
Keywords
biocultural diversity, collective action, resilient communities/ecosystems
Email
[email protected]

The African Biodiversity Network (ABN) is an African network of individuals and organizations seeking African solutions to the ecological and socio-economic challenges that face the continent. Currently, ABN has 41 partners drawn from 19 African countries: Benin, Botswana, Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Mozambique, South Africa, Tanzania, Togo, Uganda, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Burkina Faso, Rwanda, Central Africa Republic, Cameroon, Gabon, Morocco and Egypt. We strive to grow and nurture an African network of individuals, communities, and organisations, increasingly rooted in their own biological, cultural and spiritual diversity. With the capability to govern their own lives and livelihoods.

Paradigmatic

Their work is driven by the recognition that market-based economic development model has driven shift in global values towards consumerism, individualism and economic growth, and therefore that change is needed at the values-systems level, to move towards systems which value human and ecological wellbeing.

Integrated

“Their mission involves cultivating ""biological, cultural and spiritual diversity"" hand in hand. (You could roughly say this is integration of physical, interpersonal, inner).

Culture is woven into their work to address social and ecological issues: they ""pioneer culturally-centered approaches"" to social and ecological problems in Africa.

They see diversity as more-than-human: one of their core values is diversity, defined as ""to recognise as paramount the value of Africa’s diversity of cultures and of living organisms (from genetic level to ecosystem diversity).""

Ecological, spiritual, and cultural practice are interwoven with governance systems and wellbeing of ecosystems, territories and communities in their Community Ecological Governance/Sacred Natural Sites and Territories work”

Pragmatic

They are focused on “finding innovative and pioneering pathways and solutions to the continent’s challenges”. They develop and implement practical action on local, national, and international levels.

Key Publications

  1. Submission to the African Commission: A Call for Legal Recognition of Sacred Natural Sites and Territories, and their Customary Governance;
  2. Systems, Seeds for Life: Scaling Up Agro-Biodiversity. Publications can be downloaded from here: https://africanbiodiversity.org/new-publication/