agricultural production and other resources across the continent. The commercialization of agriculture through the introduction of cash crops inaugurated a food-purchasing culture as the centrality of indigenous crops was minimized. In various parts of the continent during and after colonialism, in order to survive by making enough money to buy the processed food the new realities forced them to consume, and in order to pay taxes, farmers committed what little productive land had been left under their control to cash crops. This was their way of asserting minimal financial agency in the new economy, which had locked out Africans. In Kenya, they planted crops such as coffee and tea, a practice that was detrimental to the soil (Maathai 2007a, 123). At the same time, indigenous trees fell victim to this profiteering scheme targeting natural resources (122). In the same way that cash crops replaced indigenous crops, fast-growing nonindigenous trees that were good for financial gain, including eucalyptus, black wattle, and conifers, began to replace indigenous forests. Maathai noted that for years this destabilization of indigenous ecosystems unleashed on the continent by some countries of the Global North had inhumanely privileged capitalism at the expense of the people’s subsistence and survival—and their humanity (Maathai 2005b).
The introduction of such trees has been harmful on a number of levels. First, they could not match what the indigenous forests provided to meet the people’s needs. The economics of trees (Maathai 2010a, 86–89), recognizing only the monetary value of trees, hindered people (even scientists) from considering the natural, social, psychological, and ecological services offered by the forests (86). The foreign trees also depleted local biodiversity and drained water resources (Maathai 2005b). These thirsty trees were draining water resources at the same time the land was being cleared of trees that would contribute to rain production to replenish that very reservoir of water the alien trees were exhausting. As an added consequence, indigenous crops that ensured food security were further jeopardized because they could not thrive without water. Even the cash crops introduced in attempts to financially maximize land productivity suffered. In some cases, there was simply an inadequate supply of water. When there was water, crops such as tea, which does not thrive in excessively wet conditions, were destroyed. Even more damning was the fact that loss of soil cover with the clearing of the land led to destructive erosion in parts and affected the production of crops, including those planted for subsistence (Maathai 2005b). Concurrently, manipulating natural environments affected rainfall patterns, which in turn disrupted the predictable planning and cycles of farming.
Along with these conditions, Eurocentric world senses and paradigms of colonialism encouraged the (mis)management of the environment. Eurocentric binary lenses of engaging the world generated hierarchies of bodies and entities, where white was better than black and human was better than nature. The humans could, therefore, manipulate and use their environment in any way that suited their interests. Maathai continually returned to African folktales to illustrate the fallacy of this way of thinking as well as the ills of depersonalizing human connections to natural resources. Such differentiation of entities in an environment breeds a lack of sensitivity to the interconnectedness of the various parts of that cosmos and its ecosystems. Through the colonial, Eurocentric lens, nature was viewed in terms of monetary potential. Trees, for example, simply became timber, and elephants were viewed as a source for ivory (Taking Root
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