Rest as resistance: Ecofeminism in the Congo Basin and beyond
By Shreya Chakrabarti
A grassroots activist works unpaid overtime, navigating political risk, community tension, and personal sacrifice – often alone. She is trying to keep her community forest standing, her team motivated, her donors satisfied, and her family fed. I’ve studied and worked in the community-led conservation space for half a decade, and this is a story I see reflected across Africa – the landscapes, languages, and local needs may differ, but the human cost remains the same. It isn’t just a resource gap. It’s an injustice.
Self-care becomes a radical act in a world built on extractivism, where even our energy is commodified. Choosing to protect one’s well-being is part of the social justice we fight for.
This truth is slowly taking hold across Africa’s climate and conservation movements: care itself is political. It is not a sign of weakness, but a form of resistance to the systems that exploit both people and planet. As Audre Lorde wrote decades ago, “Caring for myself is not self-indulgence, it is self-preservation – and that is an act of political warfare.”
The weight of the work
Behind the glossy project reports and social media updates lies an uncomfortable reality. Many activists, leaders, and organisers – who only deign to care about the state of the world – are overworked, underpaid, and emotionally drained. Well-being support remains out of reach for those whose overwhelming priorities are to deliver on project objectives, respond to community needs, and simply keep their work going.
They are the same people who witness deforestation, displacement, and drought firsthand. They carry the grief of lost forests, poisoned rivers, and failed policies. The trauma accumulates quietly. Burnout here is not a buzzword, but an occupational hazard.
As Tunisian activist Aya Chebbi reminds us, “Rest is a form of resistance that refuses the systems profiting from our exhaustion.” Hope Chigudu from Uganda argues that well-being must be woven into the governance of movements themselves. And feminist scholar Hakima Abbas writes that “we cannot build liberated futures on unhealed bodies.”
These are not new ideas. Feminists and community organisers have said this for decades – that no struggle can sustain itself in exhaustion. But the current state of the world makes their truth impossible to ignore. Climate disasters are accelerating, political spaces are shrinking, and the people holding the line are burning out. If we don’t care for those carrying the work, the work itself cannot survive.
Together, these thinkers and activists offer a challenge to our movements: stop romanticising sacrifice and start valuing sustainability – not only ecological, but human too.
Amid this global reckoning, one group helping to nurture this shift is Well Grounded – an organisation that supports African civil society bodies to become stronger, more self-sustaining, and more just. Since 2019, its Les Éclaireuses (The Pathfinders) ecofeminist leadership and activism program has been working across the Congo Basin to help women leaders and environmental defenders reconnect care with power, and resilience with impact.
The politics of care in a region under pressure
In the Congo Basin, the world’s second lung, life is as abundant as it is precarious. Forests stretch endlessly, but so does the struggle to protect them. This region faces overlapping crises: climate disasters that wash away homes and crops; extractive industries carving through ancestral lands; and social systems that still silence women, even as they hold communities together. In a context marked by inequity, insecurity and exhaustion, caring for others has long been a survival strategy. But caring for oneself has rarely been seen as possible – let alone political. That is beginning to change.
As Mary Baika, Well Grounded’s coordinator for the Les Eclaireuses leadership program, explains, “Ecofeminism speaks to our daily reality as women in the Congo Basin. We are the ones collecting water, farming, caring for families, and protecting forests – yet we are often excluded from the decisions that affect these very resources. Ecofeminism recognises our struggle for gender justice and our struggle for environmental justice are one and the same.”
For women leaders and activists across this landscape, ecofeminism has become less a theory than a mirror. It exposes how the same logic that extracts from the Earth also extracts from their bodies and time. It gives language to exhaustion. It reframes rest and reflection not as retreat, but as a resistance.
Léa Valentini, Co-Director at Well Grounded, notes that ecofeminism in this region offers “a more harmonious way of relating to people and planet,” one that “recognises the deep links between the exploitation of women and the exploitation of nature.” For many participants in Les Éclaireuses, that awareness has sparked a quiet revolution. Some have begun blocking one afternoon a week for reflection and rest. Others have started saying no to endless meetings, to being the only woman taking notes in a room full of men, to carrying everyone else’s weight.
One alumna shared, “I understood that taking care of myself is not a luxury, but a necessity to continue to fight my battles.”
Across the Congo Basin in different Les Éclaireuses cohorts, that sentiment is slowly taking root. Women who once measured their worth by how much they gave are learning that leadership also means protecting the source of their strength. For some, that has meant taking the floor in meetings they used to sit out; for others, it’s been as simple – and as radical – as choosing rest without guilt.
African ecofeminism has always been rooted in this kind of pragmatism. It is not an academic current imported from elsewhere, but a lived philosophy that grows from the continent’s intertwined struggles for liberation, land, and dignity. Across Africa, from Wangari Maathai’s tree-planting movement to the women building the Sahel’s Great Green Wall, care has never been separate from resistance. What distinguishes the movement that Les Éclaireuses hopes to ignite in the Congo Basin is its insistence that healing the forest and healing the self are part of the same work.
“Too often, conservation comes from outside, with rules and solutions imposed on our communities,” Mary reflects. “Leadership is presented as individual achievement, as competition, or as something technical. But here, change is collective. We lead by building trust, by sharing knowledge, by holding each other.”
“If leadership models do not reflect our culture of solidarity, they simply don’t work. Ecofeminism allows us to create leadership practices that are rooted in our context and our values,” she adds.
That understanding has given rise to a growing sisterhood: women who check in on one another, who build strength through empathy, and who remind each other that to protect nature, they must also protect themselves. It is, in Léa’s words, a “ripple effect” – one that begins quietly within, and extends outward to families, organisations, and the broader movement for justice.
The radical act of rest
As Salisha Chandra, a Kenyan-born activist and Director of Strategic Initiatives at Maliasili, reflects, “We all know the work of protecting and restoring our biodiversity matters. The fundamental shift we need is for conservation and climate activists to wake up to the truth that they matter too.”
That statement goes to the heart of the crisis. The culture of overwork and constant urgency in activism mirrors the extractive logic we claim to fight. It assumes endless labour, endless resilience, endless giving.
“We are trying to build a better world,” Salisha says. “That begins by letting the people who lead change believe they deserve rest, too.”
For many women in Les Éclaireuses, this realisation has been transformative. They describe moments of pausing for breath, of saying no without guilt, of rediscovering the joy in their work. One participant said, “We are learning that the health of the forest depends on the health of the people who defend it.”
Care as the future of activism
This new culture of activism – rooted in care, solidarity and self-awareness – is still fragile. Most donors do not fund rest. Few project log-frames measure joy. Yet if movements are to endure, this must change.
Imagine a future where climate-justice budgets include therapy, reflection retreats, and healing circles; where burnout prevention is treated as seriously as biodiversity loss; where funders understand that nurturing human sustainability is also ecological sustainability.
Across Africa, women activists are already living that future in small, defiant ways – taking days off, setting boundaries, journaling, mentoring, walking together. It is a quiet revolution, but it is spreading.
Because the work of protecting life cannot come at the expense of our own. Because self-care is collective care. Because to protect the Earth, we must also protect ourselves.
And perhaps, the most radical thing a woman can do in a burning world is to rest – and rise again.
About the Author: Shreya Chakrabarti is a researcher and communications specialist working at the intersection of conservation, storytelling, and community rights. Based in Nairobi, she supports Maliasili’s network of 50+ African community-led conservation organizations in strengthening their narratives, increasing their visibility, and building meaningful connections with local and global audiences. Her work focuses on amplifying grassroots voices and translating impact into stories that inspire action and shift power.