Adom, D. (2021). The sustainability of the Science in the productive cultural instruments of African Ancestors for natural resource management

 The cultural practices in many African societies are often misconstrued as idolatrous practices. While some of the cultural practices are counter-productive, many others intelligently showcase the science of the African forebears in the field of nature conservation, specifically, the sound management of landmass, water bodies, flora, fauna, and aquatic species. Adopting the PRISMA systematic review, Ninety-Six published literature on cultural practices and traditional ecological knowledge for natural resource management such as taboo systems, cosmological belief systems, and totems in some African ethnic societies were scholarly analysed and interpreted, with inferences drawn for contemporary use in the management of the scarce resources in Africa. The findings indicate that these productive cultural practices were cleverly formulated by the African forebears to prevent the wanton looting of nature’s resources while jealously and sustainably protecting them for the current and future generations. The study contends that the restricted times, number, and aspects of nature’s resources for harvesting, the affiliation of nature’s resources to vengeful deities and respected ancestors in the society as well as the earmarking of particular spots as sacred groves are scientific strategies set by the African forebears to sustainably manage the resources in their environment for posterity. Therefore, such traditional instruments for nature resource management must be constantly included in policies and strategies in modern biodiversity and environmental policies for African countries.