Decolonising and innovating in ecological resilience at Tudor Creek, Mombasa

Introduction

Tudor Creek, Mombasa.

Environmental projects around the world, especially in the Global South and formerly colonised countries, can often be criticised for failing to consider, respect, and involve local people. Schemes can reflect the priorities of Western governments, funders, and international organisations, while failing to benefit (or even harming) local communities. However, work by Mbaarak Abdalla and Brain Youth Group, centred in Mombasa and taking place in other parts of Kenya, counters this trend.

Learning about mangroves at Tudor Creek

As part of the SCDTP-funded trip to Mombasa centred around the topic of decoloniality in social science, our students and staff had the privilege of visiting Mbaarak at his Tudor Creek mangrove reforestation project. Mangroves are something of an ecological miracle in the Mombasa context and within global climate action.

This is because they sequester large amounts of carbon, consequently removing pollutants from the atmosphere. Mangroves support the development of diverse ecosystems (with crabs, salamanders, birds, and more!) and protect coastal and tidal communities from flooding and erosion. What makes the mangrove forest at Tudor Creek especially unique is that its peri-urban setting is close to settlements including Kisuani, Mikindani, and Mombasa’s Old Town. This puts it close to local communities who can contribute to, and draw social and economic benefits from, the conservation efforts.

Beyond planting mangroves, the local team organises beach clean-ups, keeps bees, farms fish, and raises awareness locally on environmental issues.

Mbaarak (left) explaining the different varieties of mangrove planted at Tudor Creek.

Mbaarak and his majority-female team gave us a very warm welcome, teaching us about the different varieties of mangroves planted at the site and giving us the opportunity to get involved in planting.

Decolonising ecological resilience

Decolonial perspectives are increasingly important in the social sciences, and this is reflected in some of the current projects pursued by SCDTP-funded PhD students. Decolonial social science recognises that how we do research and discuss social issues privileges Western perspectives, and reflects and reinforces inequalities in power and access to resources between the Global North and Global South. At the same time, research disregards the values and perspectives of formerly colonised countries, missing the contributions these insights offer to solving global challenges and achieving the United Nations’ 2030 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

Decolonial perspectives have been applied to the field of ecological resilience, and Amo-Agyemang (2021) discusses the ways in which resilience research often reflects neoliberal, Western ideas which expect people from lower- and middle-income countries to “pick themselves up by their bootstraps” to deal with the catastrophic consequences of climate change, which have been demonstrated to disproportionately affect Global South countries and vulnerable populations therein (Ngcamu, 2023). As Ayo-Agyemang (2021) points out, the people of Africa have a long history of adapting to ecological challenges in creative and culturally relevant ways. The Akan people of Ghana, for instance, develop reciprocal relationships with plants, animals, and waters on which they depend biologically, economically, and culturally.

These relationships are regulated through religious and cultural norms which are passed down through generations, such as taboos around cutting down trees. Local and indigenous knowledge has much to offer in the global fight against climate change, and respecting Global South communities is both a practical and ethical necessity.

Progress and future directions

Beehives, located at Tudor Creek and used by the community to make honey.

The Tudor Creek team, while drawing funding from a range of international sources (including Rituals, Radicant Bank, ClimatePartner, Ecosystem Restoration Communities, Goumbook, Global Green Grants, UNDP, IDEA WILD, and Equity Bank Group), is firmly rooted in the local community, protecting them from ecological harm, supporting the local biodiversity, and raising awareness. The work at Tudor Creek also supports the local economy by creating jobs, improving access to resources, and generating opportunities for the future. So far, 3.95 million mangroves have been planted, and Mbaarak and his team intend to plant a further eight million mangroves at Tudor Creek in Mombasa County. They also have plans to expand their work to other areas along the Kenyan coast including in Kwale County, Kilifi County, Tana River County, and Lamu County, eventually planting 200 million mangroves.

To find out more about the work done at Tudor Creek and around Kenya, you can connect with Mbaarak on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/mbaarak-abdalla-889896106/.

Reflections

I found my visit to Tudor Creek, and my interactions with Mbaarak, really thought-provoking. The team in Mombasa are wonderfully warm and motivated people, passionate not only about their communities but the wider challenge of climate change. They really do think global, and act local. It was also confronting. I’ve been challenged to think much more in depth about the coloniality of discourses on resilience (a concept I discuss endlessly in my thesis) and the unavoidably colonial nature of the visits we make as Western academics to the Global South. I need to change approach to organisational and academic challenges to better (a) embody decolonial principles, and (b) face up to when I cannot, or do not, do so.

References

• Amo-Agyemang, C. (2021). Decolonising the discourse on resilience. International Journal of African Renaissance Studies-Multi-, Inter-and Transdisciplinarity, 16(1), 4-30.
• Ngcamu, B. S. (2023). Climate change effects on vulnerable populations in the Global South: a systematic review. Natural Hazards, 118(2), 977-991.