The emergence of ecocriticism has enabled diverse studies on literature and the environment. In recent times, writers have employed poetry to illustrate ecoaesthetics, going beyond providing a broad view of environmental degradation to critically analyzing the various elements that make up the environment and how they interact with each other. Akwanya's Pilgrim Foot is one among other works that examined the interactions between the different entities of the ecosystem. Selected poems in Pilgrim Foot depict the estranged relationship between humanity and nature, caused by human activities and unexplainable natural disasters. The aesthetics of everyday routines constitute the foundation for this study, which critically discerns how people and their environment interact. Environmental degradation is analyzed as resulting from the detachment and discontinuity of everyday communal activities that harmonize the people and their immediate environment. The people are left traumatized due to their detachment from the environment as uncertainty looms over their future.
Prevailing global norms surrounding species migration governance are focused on threats to ecosystem services and human needs. This article recommends a move toward an ecocentrist ethic in assisted species migration for a more transformative approach to species migration governance than currently prevails. The changed circumstances posed by human-induced climate change beg the question of which species will be prioritized for protection, management, and migration. What are the implications of this selectivity for nature governance, and what are the prospects for a new classification of species based on nature-centric and intrinsic values? A more holistic view arising from earth system governance would take note of the complexity of species' responses to climate change and consider how prevailing anthropocentric norms might be transformed to reflect the needs and interests of species themselves. This approach would likely, perhaps ironically, permit the expansion of human- assisted migration as an important tool in nature and biodiversity governance.
This paper is a postcolonial ecocritical study of Isidore Okpewho's Tides. It is a critical interpretation of human ecology within the frame of a fictional narrative. The study interrogates the relationship between humans and the nonhuman natural environment within a neocolonial context. It reveals the representation of ecological ruins as an aftermath of neocolonial dominance and consequent resistance. It uncovers the contestations that follow oil explorations by foreign companies in the Delta region (representing the Niger Delta region in Nigeria) and the disruptions of the ecosystem. The study, through postcolonial ecocriticism as a theoretical framework, traces how neocolonialism is essential in understanding Delta's ecological trajectory and its current turbulence. The study deepens insights into how environmental literature contributes to the ongoing discourses on global environmental crisis and the biosphere. The source of primary data is Isidore Okpewho's Tides which is a narrative representation of this troubled region in Nigeria.
This study attempts to widen the scope of African ecocriticism and emphasize the roles of nonhuman life forms in literary representations of sustainable environments. Using Joe Ushie's poetry collection, A Reign of Locusts, for a discourse situated within the African material ecocritical problematic, the study submits that some African poets valorize their birthplaces' natures not only in recognition of the agency of their places, but also in deployment of traditionalism against the failures of modernity. That is, such African poets often shift from the romanticization of their indigenous ecologies to activism against the force that modernity exerts on the environment. While recognizing the enduring force of modernity, the poets, through their poetics of nature, suggest that the promotion of traditional ways of relating to the earth is one of the ways in which humans can ensure a sustainable environment.
