“One-eyed reason, deficient in its vision of
depth”, is how the Anglo-American philosopher Alfred Whitehead described the
scientific thought and philosophy of the 18th century.
The 18th century – the Age of
Reason – astounds me with its fertile yet flawed imagination. So much of our
understanding and relationship with our planet began then: the plenitude of
nature; the notion of equilibrium; man’s dominion over nature; our industrial
and consumer apparatus.
Today we live in an era shaped by human
agency. From trawlers scraping the ocean to the miners stripping the earth to
chainsaws decimating forests to nutrients chocking our lakes to factories
fouling our atmosphere, our civilization has wrought an epoch of unprecedented
planetary change, “the Age of Man”.
Nobel Prize Laureate Paul Crutzen called the “Age
of Man” the Anthropocene, in which
our actions to satisfy the demand food, fibre, fodder and energy put mankind at
par with a force of nature. The Anthropocene
marks a catastrophic transformation in our relationship with the planet and
imperils the services of nature, which undergird our health and wellbeing.
Ecologist and economists have coined the phrase
ecosystem services to describe the multiple services of nature that sustain
human health and wellbeing on the planet. Although environmentalists and
development practitioners use the term ecosystem services with promiscuous ease,
it reinstates the fundamental and inextricable interdependence between mankind and
nature.
Human health and wellbeing ultimately depends
on nature’s services. Nature regulates disease transmission by providing a
reservoir of non-human hosts for deadly parasites and pathogens. Forests and
soils are a living filter for water, a sink for carbon, and a regulator of
atmospheric gasses. Microbes, termites and earthworms underwrite the fertility
and productivity of soils. Wetlands and mangroves clean our lakes and oceans and
nurture the fish. Bees pollinate the crops that nourish our bodies and the flowers
that bedeck our gardens.
Alfred Whitehead was right. The mechanistic
materialism of the Age of Reason is and the notion of plenitude nature is why
our relationship with the planet is broken.
Under investment in nutrient and water
management has led to widespread soil degradation in Kenya’s agricultural land.
Soil degradation is linked with low productivity, hunger and chronic
malnutrition among millions of rural smallholder farm households.
Malnutrition is the biggest risk factor for morbidity
and mortality among children under the age of five in Kenya. Various dimensions
of malnutrition (e.g., protein, carbohydrate, micronutrient and vitamin A deficiency)
account for 7 of the 13 leading risk factors associated with the global burden
of diseases.
A recent report by the Kenya National Bureau
of Statistics and Kenya Medical Research Institute revealed that 35% of
children are stunted. Malnutrition is associated with both structural and
functional pathology of the brain and could have long lasting cognitive
impairment. According to a study conducted in 2009, less than 37% of pupils in
standard 3 attained standard 2 level competency in English and numeracy.
Studies have shown that Kakamega and South
Nandi Forests lost about 10% of forest cover in the two decades between 1980
and 2000. Scientists at the Kenya Medical Research Institute showed that
deforestation in Western Kenya highlands enhances mosquito vectorial capacity
by 77%. Vectorial capacity is directly related to the number of bites per
person per day and the life expectancy of the mosquito.
Rapid population growth, expansion of
agricultural land in the upland catchments is responsible for discharge of
sediments, nutrients and effluence into Lake Victoria. These changes have led
to a highly eutrophic or fertile lake, hence the proliferation of water
hyacinth and algae, with adverse consequences for water quality, fisheries,
household incomes and the local economies.
Water hyacinth has been implicated in
harboring the causative agent for cholera, Vibrio
cholera. A study published in the American Journal of Tropical Medicine and
Hygiene in 2010 showed that yearly water hyacinth coverage on the Kenyan
section of Lake Victoria was positively associated with the number of cholera
cases reported in Nyanza Province. Surges in the number of cases of cholera in
Nyanza Province coincide with two pulses in the eruption and abundance of water
hyacinth; 1997–2000 and 2006–2008.
Putting nature under man’s dominion is woefully
limited in its depth of understanding the interdependence between man and nature.
Kenya does not need globally binding agreements to appreciate that a population
expanding by over 1million per year needs more food, farmland, water, energy
and shelter, which cannot be met on a declining natural capital base.
The seemingly inexorable decline of our
natural capital and allied ecosystem services is partly due to lack of assessment
and valuation. The farmlands, rangelands, forests, rivers, wetlands, lakes,
coral reefs and mangroves of this country are capital assets and must be a part
of our GDP reporting; valued in combination with financial capital,
manufactured capital, and human capital.
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