Infusing African Indigenous Knowledge in Global Environmental Discourse: Rethinking “Development” in South Africa

Global concern over the state of the natural environment has been increasing enormously in recent years. This concern has materialized within global, national and local policy circles with an array of citizen participation in environmental conservation and efforts at the national and local levels as well as international initiatives such as the 1992 Earth Summit, 1994 Rio summit, 1997 Kyoto Summit, and more recently the Johannesburg Summit on Sustainable Development; all aiming at dealing with the environmental "crisis" with poverty deepening and environmental degradation worsening. In much of these initiatives, several conclusions have been reached as to the effect and the magnitude of the crisis and the solutions that can be adopted in order to alleviate the global situation.