African biodiversity : foundation for the future : a framework for integrating biodiversity conservation and sustainable development

This report suggests a series of practical (but by no means simple steps) that African governments and NGOs can to take to reverse this trend by linking sustainable development and biodiversity conservation. The report is divided into two parts. Part I presents an overview of the challenges Africans face in conserving their biological heritage and proposes a framework of recommendations and actions to address those challenges. Part II fills out this framework through an indepth discussion of critical biological diversity issues, including: (1) ways to improve biodiversity conservation by incorporating African social, economic, and other values; (2) the importance of traditional knowledge of the environment, with emphasis on the role of women; (3) new approaches to biodiversity conservation which combine the best aspects of traditional and modern systems, with emphasis on land use planning techniques; (4) the effect on biodiversity of national and international policies concerning land tenure, export promotion, and intellectual property rights; (5) the importance of incorporating local resource users into biodiversity conservation efforts, and ways of achieving this; (6) opportunities for advancing biodiversity conservation through information sharing and the development of Africa"s human resources; and (7) techniques for improving project management and accountability, along with specific constraints and opportunities in this sphere.