Since the very beginning, Africa has been known for Her rich soil and flowing rivers. In Her pockets, she carries precious gold and minerals. Her cool breath blows the butterflies and the leaves. Listen carefully, and you can hear Her call of the wild. Her abundance provides for all Her inhabitants, from the tiniest beetle to the largest elephant.

This is Africa, She is a force, and Her fertile valleys are the source of all life; plants, trees, fish, birds, beasts and yes, even humankind were all birthed and cradled in these magnificent vistas.

Deep beneath Her soil, the fossils of billions of plants and creatures that lived before us lie buried in their sacred grave, and over the aeons, they have formed into pools of oil and reservoirs of gas which our ancestors knew should have been allowed to rest in peace.

But one hundred and seventy years ago, a treacherous group of people stumbled upon the Earth’s oil and gas. They learnt how to extract what was kept underground, and they fled with what was not theirs and used it to power their fast, industrialised and motorised world.

Driven by greed, their machinery ripped through the earth, plundering Her riches and leaving Her scarred, battered and polluted.  Just follow their oily tracks to the north; that’s where you will find their ill-begotten gains, all stashed in the coffers of the greasy oil and gas companies and their accomplices – the banks who finance their crimes and the power brokers who enable them. 

 

Before long, a frenzy of development broke out, which was beneficial to the privileged few, but created even more inequality for the vast majority of people in Africa and wanton destruction of the environment and all its creatures ensued.

Africa wept uncontrollably as they tore down Her forests and polluted Her seas, rivers, land and skies, leaving a trail of death and destruction in their wake. Her tears flooded the landscape, causing chaos, and Her shivers shook the mountains at their very foundations. And then – as if decades of burning fossil fuels had ignited a fire in Her belly – Africa heated up. So the droughts and wildfires became worse, and storms increased in frequency and severity as Her anger grew.

The maternal spirit in Her is what had provided an ample abundance of food, air and water for all Her inhabitants over the millennia, only for a selfish minority of the apex species to put it all at risk by putting profit before people with no regard for the consequences of their greed.

Now it is the maternal spirit in Africa whose rage is poised to raise the heat, which will, in turn, bring about a catastrophic change in climate that will destroy this human threat to the continent and planet. Because that’s what mothers do – they care and provide for home and family, and they will do all that’s necessary to protect that which is being threatened.

Some call this maternal African spirit Mother Nature. Some call Her Mother Earth, Africa. We lovingly call Her Ma’Africa for short. She is beautiful and gracious, and caring. But She is also strong and fearsome when She needs to be. And right now She is angry!

Who are we? We are a collective of environmentalists and activists united in the African Climate Movement, and we are not afraid to take on the fossil fuel companies and prevent them from unleashing Total destruction with their slimy projects. We will do what it takes to stop these seri’oil killers, preventing climate change and the extinction of humankind. We will overturn the era of fossil fuels and usher in a just transition to sustainable energy to ensure all species survive.

We are an army of African environmental defenders and justice campaigners from organisations such as The Climate Justice Coalition, IGEN, StopEACOP and Fair Finance Coalition of Southern Africa and many others like Nu Climate Vision and GIFSEP, gathering communities and driving collective actions to power up the climate movement. Just like Ma’Africa, we are a formidable force and are going to stand up against systems of extraction and capitalism that keep the fossil fuel industry going. We will build solar farms and wind turbines to power up Africa and provide clean energy to the continent that will sustain the continent and let Africa thrive.