Nigeria is bedeviled with environmental issues ranging from air and water pollution to land degradation. Despite this, scholarship in environmental ethics and philosophy is not as strong in the country as it is in Europe and America. Issues relating to the environment have only been examined from scientific perspective. Only recently did scholars begin to focus their attention on ethical perspective to environmental challenges. Among the first and best known to have dedicated their research to environmental ethics are Chigbo Sunny Ekwealo (University of Lagos), who is an environmental philosopher. Finomo Julia Awajiusuk (University of Port Harcourt) devoted her doctoral thesis to analyzing environmental issues in the Niger Delta using the Christian Ethics as analytical tool. Also Fredrick Ikanya (Benue State University, Markudi) recently completed his doctoral work in Environmental Ethics. So far, there is no indigenous Environmental Ethics text in Nigeria. However, there is a research group housed in the Environmental Ethics Unit of the Department of Philosophy University of Lagos. This group has organized conferences in collaboration with the Center for Environmental Philosophy at the University of North Texas (Denton, Texas, USA). This research group publishes papers presented at these conferences in peer-reviewed journal namely, Journal of African Environmental Ethics and Values. Currently, no Nigerian university teaches Environmental Ethics as a discipline. Only recently with the concerted effort of Finomo Julia Awajiusuk was Environmental Ethics introduced into the curriculum of the undergraduate program of the Department of Religious Studies, University of Port Harcourt. In departments where environmental ethics is taught, it is done only once throughout the duration of the undergraduate program. In all, there is a silver lining in the clouds.
ISEE Representative |
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| Finomo Julia Awajiusuk Email: julia.finomo@uniport.edu.ng Website |
University of Port Harcourt, East/West Road PMB 5323 Choba, Rivers State, Nigeria |
Schools, Programs, Degrees, Classes |
| Classes have also been taught in the following Nigerian universities. |
Centers, Organizations, Journals |
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ISEE - International Society for Environmental Ethics 