How African-led Conservation Protects Both People and Wildlife

Africa Forward

In this episode host Carol Pineau discusses the need to rethink conservation in Africa from a Western model that walls off Africans, to one that puts people at the center of conservation and sees Africans driving their own conservation agenda. Africans tend to see themselves – not as the owners – but as the stewards of this biodiversity.

When you look back at the history of conservation in Africa. The Western model separated people from nature. It was a fortress model. Meanwhile, Africans, who for millennia had co-existed – and protected nature – they were often denied access to their own traditional lands.

Several studies have shown that indigenous groups have been far more successful in protecting biodiversity than the protectionist approach. According to the World Bank, while indigenous people make up just 5-percent of the world’s population, they safeguard 80-percent of the world’s biodiversity.

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