TOWARDS EARTHKEEPING: AN INDIGENOUS PERSPECTIVE
Samuel Asiedu-Amoako
Department of Religious Studies, Faculty of Social Sciences, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, Kumasi, Ghana.
Accepted December 28, 2013
The concern of this paper is to explore the intricate relations between social control mechanism and the environmental ethics. The main methods employed include; qualitative, observations and interviews. We observed that indigenous religion has incorporated in itself social mechanisms such as taboos, laws of exclusion, laws regulating exploitations etc, which has direct bearing on the environment. The paper concludes that indigenous knowledge on environmental conservation should not be seen as primitive. Rather it is the manifestation of the people's close attachment to nature which ensures sustainability and clean environment. We recommend that indigenous knowledge in sustainable development should be retrieved in order to be tapped into current conservation programs.
Key words: Indigenous knowledge, flora and fauna, sustainability, social control, environmental ethics.
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