Hybrid, Thursday 23 July 2026 – As part of National Science Month activities, HSRC Press will launch a new publication: To Defend the Earth is to Defend the Human: Amílcar Cabral on Soil, Society and Freedom. The launch will be held at the University of Cape Town on Friday, 24 July 2026, from 11:00–13:00 SAST / 12:00–14:00 EAT.
The book is an edited translation of Amilcar Cabral’s agronomics writings and situates the revolutionary as a key thinker for building a decolonial environmentalism on the continent.
Edited by Dr Anselmo Matusse (translator), Prof Lesley Green, and Prof Carlos Lopes, the book draws attention to Cabral’s exemplary soil science and to how his background as an agronomist informed his philosophy of liberation and anti-colonial struggle.
It details how Cabral recognised that Africa’s soils were subject to exploitation, extraction, degradation, and erosion by colonial models of agriculture. He argued that soil was not a static object, or a form of property, but something historical and integral to life. The fight for Africa’s liberation could therefore not be separated from the fight for soil sovereignty, or from the work of healing the human-soil relationships that had been destroyed under colonialism.
Cabral’s work is critical at a time when up to 65% of Africa’s arable land is degraded and the continent faces the interlinked crises of climate change, biodiversity loss, energy insecurity, inequality, youth unemployment, and pollution. Cabral reframes our response to these crises, placing local landscapes and soil health at the centre of society’s well-being.
Key to rebuilding good relationships with the soil, as Cabral noted, is using local and traditional models of landscape care rather than input-driven models of agriculture and extraction that are designed elsewhere, ignore the local contexts, and funnel profits to far-off places.
To Defend the Earth is to Defend the Human is Cabral’s call to bridge the divide between human and environmental prosperity. It is a framing that asks policymakers to rethink development, agriculture, and sustainability in ways that are just for people and the planet as interdependent entities.
The book launch forms part of a three-day webinar series on African environmentalism of soil hosted by Environmental Humanities South and the Club of Rome. Over the past week, the series has brought academics, civil society leaders, and youth activists into conversation around Africa’s soil crises, the assertion that soil is not merely property but a living ancestry archive, and the need to integrate traditional soil science into policy and practice.
Attendees can join the book launch by registering for the webinar at this link, or by attending in person in the Environmental Humanities South Seminar Room, 4th Floor, Humanities Building, University of Cape Town.
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Details of the event
Date: 24 July 2026
Time: 11:00–13:00 SAST / 12:00–14:00 EAT
Venue: Environmental Humanities South Seminar Room,
4th Floor, Humanities Building, University of Cape Town.
Online Link: https://thefifthelement.earth/event/webinar-african-environmentalism-of-soil/
For media enquiries, please contact:
| HSRC | UCT |
| Adziliwi Nematandani Cell: +27 82 765 9191 Email: anematandani@hsrc.ac.za | James Granelli Cell: +27 084 494 4999 Email: james.granelli@uct.ac.za |
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#HSRCPress #NSM
Notes to the editor
About the Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC)
Established in 1968, the Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC) is South Africa’s statutory research agency and the largest dedicated social science and humanities research institute on the African continent. The HSRC generates evidence and insights that inform public policy, support development and improve lives. Through high-quality research, strategic partnerships and research capacity development, the Council contributes to evidence-informed decision-making in South Africa, Africa and globally.
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About Environmental Humanities South (EHS)
Environmental Humanities South is a transdisciplinary eco-justice research centre at the University of Cape Town. EHS is focused on reconceptualising and achieving justice in African environmentalism and climate interventions. Ranging from scientific modelling to government policy, from social justice movements to the creative arts, we examine questions of sustainability, human wellbeing and the environment in their broadest sense. EHS also leads the Critical Zones Africa research project, a four year research project aimed at re-thinking local landscape governance in South Africa, Zimbabwe, Malawi, Tanzania, and Ethiopia.