Ugandan ecofeminists expose colonial-capitalist roots of climate crisis, centering women’s land stewardship as systemic solution
Original framing: “Ugandan activists make the case for ecofeminism” — bing news
Colonial land policies in Uganda (e.g., 1900 Buganda Agreement) privatized communal lands, displacing women who relied on collective farming. Post-independence 'development' projects (e.g., 1960s cotton schemes) further marginalized women, while structural adjustment in the 1980s forced land sales to agribusiness. These patterns mirror global trends where climate 'solutions' (e.g., carbon markets) replicate colonial extraction under new guises.
Ugandan ecofeminists expose how colonial-capitalist land regimes—from the 1900 Buganda Agreement to IMF structural adjustment—disproportionately burden women by privatizing communal resources and displacing female farmers.
Their framework, rooted in indigenous concepts like *ekisaakaate* and *obulamu*, offers a decolonial alternative to Western 'green economy' narratives, which often co-opt feminist language while perpetuating extraction. Parallel movements in Kenya (*Mama wa Africa*), Bolivia (*ch’ixi*), and India (*Chipko*) reveal ecofeminism as a global praxis of relational stewardship, not victimhood. Yet mainstream climate discourse sidelines these systemic critiques, favoring carbon markets and 'empowerment' workshops over land reform and reparations. The path forward requires dismantling neoliberal land policies, redirecting climate finance to women-led cooperatives, and centering indigenous knowledge in education and policy—transforming ecofeminism from a slogan into a structural revolution.