Journal of African Studies and Sustainable Development

The increasing convergence of biodiversity loss, ecosystem degradation, climate change, and emerging public health crises has exposed the inadequacy of prevailing anthropocentric approaches to environmental management and human well-being. Although contemporary scientific frameworks such as One Health and Planetary Health have significantly advanced interdisciplinary understanding of the interconnectedness of humans, animals, and ecosystems, they remain largely grounded in empirical and policy-oriented analyses with limited engagement with the deeper ontological assumptions that shape humanity's relationship with the natural world. This paper argues that the current ecological crisis is fundamentally an ontological crisis rooted in anthropocentric conceptions of reality that privilege human interests while reducing nature to an instrument of economic and technological exploitation. Employing the philosophical methods of critical analysis, hermeneutics, and comparative inquiry, the study reconstructs African metaphysics as a systematic relational ontology capable of providing an alternative philosophical framework for biodiversity conservation and public health. The major findings reveal that anthropocentrism constitutes an ontological error because it fragments the relational unity of existence; that biodiversity possesses ontological value as an expression of the plurality and richness of Being rather than merely instrumental or intrinsic value; and that public health is best understood as the harmonious flourishing of the entire community of life rather than simply the absence of disease. The study's principal theoretical contribution is the formulation of African Ontological Relationalism, defined as the metaphysical doctrine that reality is constituted by a dynamic communion of interdependent beings whose existence, identity, and flourishing arise through relationships of complementarity and participation. Therefore, extending African metaphysical insights into contemporary debates on environmental philosophy, biodiversity conservation, and global health, the study provides a novel ontological foundation that complements existing scientific frameworks and offers a philosophically grounded paradigm for sustainable ecological governance, public health policy, and future interdisciplinary research.

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