Restoring Our Home in Nature: The Story and Practice of the African Biodiversity Network

"ABN's philosophy has communities' interests at the heart. We must continue to find good ways of communicating with each other and sharing information. This is the way that we will all grow and strengthen our communities. And as we have experienced there is no substitute for meeting face-to-face, and in nature."

This Barefoot Guide shares the journey and practice of the African Biodiversity Network (ABN), which is an African network of individuals and organisations seeking African solutions to the ecological and socio-economic challenges that face the continent. Released on the occasion of ABN's 20th anniversary, the resource includes stories, told by some of ABN's 41 members from 19 countries across Africa, that highlight the practices they have been using to support communities to reconnect to their cultural roots and to nature and to find their resilience in the face of the climate crisis and the domination of industrial agriculture. A core goal is to inspire readers to become more proactive contributors to sustainable livelihoods that promote living in harmony with nature.

​​The voices in the guide are those of a number of fictional characters or hosts who accompany the reader through the stories and conversations. They have been created to represent the diverse and authentic voices of the many members of the ABN, including the editors. Their conversations and stories are drawn from various writeshops (writing workshops) and meetings over several years with ABN members and staff. The chapters include:

1. Birthing Our Future Youth, Culture and Biodiversity
2. Harvests of Hope: Reviving Indigenous Food and Community Seeds
3. Restoring Our future: Community Ecological Governance
4. Surfacing Life and Resilience: ABN's Key Approaches and Methodologies
5. Communication and Advocacy: Spreading the Word to the World

For instance, the reader learns that, during ABN's training and dialogue events, communities often get together to describe how nature provides their food, medicine, and cultural symbolism, and how their role is to conserve and uphold the connection to nature. After the training, they pledge to revive indigenous seeds and strengthen the seeds system through seed sharing and community seed banks. Communities also learn how to organise and lead community dialogues to get more youth involved and to learn from elders. The women custodians of seed share their indigenous knowledge of seeds, herbs, and foods. The focus is on reviving the indigenous knowledge and practices that sustained the communities for generations before colonisation and all that followed.

Together, those present at the ABN dialogues reflect on what has happened and remember and rebuild confidence in themselves by listening and learning from each other. Through such strategies, they build unity and resilience. The ABN addresses challenges by forging alliances, countering unsuitable development approaches, and proposing resilient and sustainable alternatives.

As illustrated by the above example, the guide highlights the inter-generational knowledge within African communities, emphasising ABN's respect for ancestral wisdom that is often overlooked in governmental "development planning". This indigenous knowledge is passed down through observation, participation, and practices. Indeed, storytelling around the fire, dialogue, and nature observation are key means of fostering inter-generational learning beyond the classroom or book learning.

In short, the guide illustrates the transformative power of collaboration in reviving indigenous roots and reimagining sustainable futures.