In line with its 2022 theme, HOMEF will be using her Ikike vehicle as a tool in propelling the coming and much needed transition. This will be achieved through sessions of School of Ecology and Conversations, among other projects.
The School sessions will be focused on interrogating concepts and ideologies that could help propel the transition while raising awareness on the falsehood of some of the concepts that could deter or delay it. The conversations will be focused on discussing the current imaginaries, realities and narratives around pressing environmental/human rights topics and learning from and interacting with materials from profound activists, past and present.
Below is a curriculum brief of the school sessions and conversations in 2022.
Propelling the Transition (Debating Alternatives)
July 13-14 (Physical – Benin City)
During the last Conference of Parties (COP26) in Glasgow, Scotland, countries made pledges as to when they will attain a net zero carbon emission. Some countries like Nigeria pledged to attain that in 2060. In spite of the falsehood and vagueness they carried, these pledges were applauded by many. A critical look at that term ‘net zero’ reveals that what these governments succeeded in doing in Glasgow was to shift taking responsibility to future innocent generations while also postponing the impending catastrophe. The need for unpacking the real import of the unfolding climate change catastrophe became very clear afterwards.
Shortly after COP26, the Nigerian president enacted a Climate Change law. The basic underpinning of the law aligns with the widely held notion that climate change is to be solved by a fixation on the carbon molecules in the atmosphere and through variants of carbon offsetting. These and many others like the newly promoted Agricultural Innovation Mission for Climate (AIM4C) proposed mainly by the USA government have been promoted as the needed solution to climate change.
This school session is set to shine light on and unmasked the falsehood of these proposed solutions while proposing a pathway to the urgently needed just transition. Solutions that are people-centered as well as in harmony with nature will also be explored in this school session.
Subtopics
- NDCs: What they mean to Africa and Africans and other low lying countries
- The pathways to energy transition (the good, the bad and the ugly)
- Exploring the Okavango Basin: Implications for Namibia/Botswana and the rest of Africa
- Propelling the energy transition: Citizens’ actions
- How clean is clean energy? – The debate over approaches to renewable energies and nature based solutions
- Building resilience – The role of Government, private sector and citizens
- The needed transition – a view from the socio-economic and climate justice dimension
- Delay is dangerous – what needed climate actions
- A look at COPs – Where will Africa be in COP27?
Ending the Fossil Age – Divestment
Sept. 20 – 22 – (Physical – Port Harcourt)
Over the years, crude oil exploration companies have contributed hugely to the serious pollutions witnessed all around Africa’s marine environment. For example, the Niger Delta region of Nigeria, covering has been increasingly hit with the avalanche of pollution in the environment, visible in the terrestrial and marine environment and even the air. The major causes of marine pollutions include offshore exploration and exploitation activities, oil spills, discharge of industrial waste and plastics into the rivers etc.
There is a new wave of divestment drive by oil and gas companies manifesting in the companies selling off their onshore facilities and moving further into the deep offshore where there will be little or no accountability. This move will pose a problem because already polluted communities will be left with the burden of pollution, health issues, environmental degradation all caused by the activities of these divesting companies.
If these companies are allowed to sell off their polluting assets and move offshore without cleaning and restoring impacted communities, the entire oil and gas impacted communities in the Niger Delta will be left stranded with pollution and degraded environment.
As a consequence, the worst hit will be the community people who are predominantly fishers and farmers. There is need to engage as more communities as possible to train them and unite their voices against the monstrous activities of oil and gas companies.
Subtopics
- The fossil age and why it needs to end
- Divestment: The meaning, trend and prevailing imaginaries
- Who bears the brunt of divestment?
- Which way forward (for impacted communities)
- See something, say something (monitoring the environment)
- The ABCs of Campaign/Advocacy
- Why campaigns fail and Lessons from successful campaigns and advocacy
- Organizing and structuring for impactful advocacy
- Taking it to the power house – Engaging the policy makers
Blue Economy
October 19-21 (Virtual & Physical)
As efforts are being made towards restoring ecosystem and saving us from catastrophic climate change, different concepts and ideologies are springing up. While some are geared towards improving the quality of life and proffering real sustain-able solutions, others lean towards the continuous profiting of big corporations at the expense of the wellbeing of local communities.
We believe that it is pertinent to demystify these new concepts before they gain acceptance and become pivots of new policies.
The blue economy concept, with all its “proposed promises” has not proven to be different from the extractivist paradigm – causing despoliation, livelihood stress, environmental and health issues, among other issues in Africa and particularly target and non-target communities. The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) aim to promote actions that will save our planet, end poverty and ensure peace and prosperity for all without leaving anyone behind by 2030. Specifically, the 14thgoal aims at protecting life below water, but that cannot be achieved if extraction and pollution in aquatic ecosystems continue. This School of Ecology session will be focused on the technicalities and politics of the Blue Economy. It will also examine related concepts that have entered developmental policy documents of African governments.
Subtopics
- The State of Aquatic Ecosystems in Africa – Pollution
- Marine and Freshwater Protected Area: Learning from indigenous people
- Oceans, Geoengineering and climate threats
- Sea Grabs: Stealing, sea piracy and conflicts
- Unmasking The Blue economy Concept
- Counting ecological cost: Blue economy
- Big infrastructure and disruptions (Dams, Pipelines, Mining, etc)
- Blue Economy and Environmental Justice
- Implications of Blue Economy to local FishersExamining the performance of Blue Economy initiatives in Africa
Political Ecology
Nov. 22 – 24 (Virtual)
The climate crisis in which the world is engulfed is a result of a deeply flawed economic model which sees nature as an inexhaustible source of materials.
Over the years, corporations in bed with the super powers have sought ways to commodify nature and its gifts. Although this drive has been projected as beneficial for the greater good, it is nothing but a strategy to continuously whet the pockets of a few at the detriment of the most vulnerable.
To understand the climate crises, it is important to explore it from its origin, Political ecology – to study of the relationships between political, economic and social factors as they all interrelate with environmental issues and changes.
The environmental problems that we face now as much as they are linked to global economic models, they are also intrinsically linked to our political inclinations. It is believed that the road to finding the solution to a problem begins with the identification of its cause/source.This school session seeks to make bare the link between the exchangeability of nature’s entities and processes for market gains and the implication of such to the current global climate issues.
Subtopics
- Global economic model flaws a precursor of climate change
- Commodification of nature, land and sea grabs
- Growth and Sacrifice Zones: the cost of growth
- Africa: Green New or Old Deal? Green Capitalism
- Communities on the Front Lines
- Re-source democracy and conflict resolution
- Standing for the Earth: Ecological monitoring (Forests, Extractives , desertification)Eti-Uwem: Measures of wellbeing, Re-source democracy
Promotion of Agroecology practice and principles, Food Sovereignty and Farmers managed Seed System and ownership
Dec. 5 (Virtual)
This session is set to promote the understanding of Agroecological practices and principles as a viable solution to challenges faced by farmers in particular and other stakeholders in the food and agriculture systems.
Subtopics
- Impacts of Climate change on agriculture
- The falsehood of genetic modifications as solution to food insecurity
- Farmers’ managed seed systems – challenges and way forwardAgroecology as viable solution for food sovereignty and security
Transforming the Earth
(Virtual)
Due to the weak/no regulatory systems in African countries, corporations now appear to see and use Africa as a dumping ground for risky and unproven technologies. Livelihoods and rights across the continent have been upturned and disrupted by these fast-tracking high technologies with impacts on agriculture, health, conservation, climate and nature in general.
African countries have experienced unprecedented influx of unproven/failed technologies. Countries like Burkina Faso, Nigeria, Tanzania, South Africa, etc. have had to battle with technologies like; Target malaria GM mosquitoes, BT Cowpea, artificial upwelling and enhanced weathering respectively. Proponents of these risky technologies are hiding behind the need to transition to promote technologies which are targeted at nothing but profit making at the expense of lives and livelihood of the people. The question of whether or not these technologies and others like them are safe has been scarcely discussed and it’s not popular among the masses in Africa. For this reason, HOMEF intends to use its School of Ecology to interrogate these technologies and expose its scholars to the implications of adopting them in Africa
Subtopics
- Climate change and nature colonialism
- Understanding technologies: traditional, modern, post-modern.
- New and Emerging Technologies: Implications for Africa and Africans
- Geoengineering: Fiddling with the Planetary Thermostat
- Eco-Colonialism and persistent coloniality
- Technofixes: Solution or Threat?
- Introduction to the ‘Fourth Industrial Revolution’ 4IR and the new techno-grab for Africa.
- Sky, Sea and Land Grabs
- Africa’s future with AI, Robotics and Machines
- Sustain-able innovative solutions as alternative to harmful emerging technologiesRegulating Emerging Technologies: The Pitfalls and the Opportunities
Kindly follow this link to sign up for the sessions: https://forms.gle/CvwYadhnkBG2t2s27
