Achieving Sustainable Development Goal 15: Revisiting Indigenous Environmental Preservation Norms in Selected Fante Communities

Abstract

The thesis is an exploratory study of revisiting indigenous environmental norms in selected Fante communities, a conception of the environment as public goods and the social expectations and traditional sustainability framework that resonates with the Sustainable Development Goal 15. The worldview of a group of people entails describing the Philosophical components related to the way they see their version of reality in the cosmos created by the Supreme Being, which is the abode of the supernatural entities. Accordingly, most indigenous African societies used numerous norms to preserve the environment on a sustainable basis. Due to modernisation and globalisation, the neglect of these traditional protocols has dwindled the environmental preservation norms and brought about severe environmental challenges in its wake. The thesis is driven by the theory of the human-environment relation and applies the Sustainable Development Goals 15, which focuses on protecting the ecosystem to interrogate human activities that undermine the physical environment. The study revealed that the environmental worldview of the Fante comprises physical and spiritual. This is shown in their belief in supernatural entities. The belief system informed the formulation of norms that aided environmental sustainability in indigenous Fante communities. The thesis concludes that a holistic approach in dealing with the environmental challenges of the Fante should bear in mind the human-environment relation theory that requires human beings to mediate their relationship with the environment based on their culture.