Browsing by Author "Antwi, Joseph Kofi Rev"

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    Akan Religio-Cultural Thought and Environmental Management: The Case of the Atiwa District, Ghana
    (KNUST, 2018-11) Antwi, Joseph Kofi Rev
    There are a number of academic studies that suggest that conservational values embedded in religio-cultural thoughts could be used in collaboration with science in finding lasting solutions to the environmental problems. However, despite these abundant studies and advocacy, successive governments of Ghana have ignored these in environmental management strategies. Using the Atiwa district in the Eastern Region of Ghana, as a case study, this study explores the reasons why policy-decision makers have not factored the Akan religio-cultural thoughts into environmental management in Ghana. Three qualitative techniques were employed in this study: key-informant personal interviews, participant’s observation and focus-group discussion. Data from the fieldwork were analysed to discover relationships, facts and assumptions that addressed the objectives of the study using the ethnographic research analysis tool. The study reveals that Akan religio-cultural thought comprises primarily the thinking patterns, values, beliefs and practices of the indigenous people and expressed through myths, customs, traditions, proverbs, beliefs and practices, values and moral systems, and they continue to shape the life of the people, including their ecological knowledge. The study further shows that Akans express their environmental conservational potentials through indigenous resources such as the concept of Kraboa (Totems), Sasa-tumi (Spirits), Sacred groves, Gyedua (Trees), Asaase Yaa (Mother Earth), and others. The study notes that the people have been relying on these conservational strategies since time immemorial, long before the encounter with Westernisation. To be able to harness their conservational potentials today, it is proposed that the religio-cultural thoughts must be ennobled to serve as a guide to environmental managers in formulating new policies of conserving the environment not only in Atiwa, but other communities in Ghana.