Conservation

The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment emphasises the inter-relationship between ecosystem health and human well-being. Most ecosystems are severely degraded and the services that they provide to society are diminishing. As a result, important targets for biodiversity and development are unlikely to be met. Community conservation processes are often isolated and marginalised from mainstream conservation efforts.

More than twenty years have passed since community-based natural resource management (CBNRM) rose to prominence in different parts of Africa as a strategy for rural development, local empowerment, and conservation. Led by new ideas about the merits of decentralized, collective resource governance regimes, and creative field experiments such as Zimbabwe's CAMPFIRE, these community-based approaches evolved in a wide range of ecological, political, and social contexts across Africa.

Le Maroc entreprend une initiative de grande envergure visant l'établissement d'un réseau national d'aires protégées écologiquement représentatif et adéquatement géré. Plus de 150 Sites d'Intérêt Biologique et Ecologique, identifiés dans différentes régions du pays constituent la base spatiale pour l'établissement de ces aires protégées. Jusqu'en 2006, neuf de ces sites ont été classés Parcs Nationaux.

Marine mammal conservation presents a number of challenges for scientists and other stakeholders, especially using natural resources in ways that avoid crisis management. Scientists play the special role of providing vital information to decision makers to help them understand long-term consequences of their actions and avoid crises before they develop.

Conservation can best be achieved when conservation values are part of the mainstream of society, when they “become part of everyone’s decisions” including government, private enterprise and the community as a whole. This was recognized by the more than 320 participants from Pacific island governments, Pacific and international organizations and community groups when they met in Rarotonga, Cook Islands in July 2002 for the 7th Conference on Nature Conservation and Protected Areas.

Cette revue de la conservation de la nature et des aires protégées en Côte d'Ivoire, où les habitats naturels se sont trouvés bouleversés en seulement deux ou trois décennies, constitue une contribution à un état des lieux biogéographique du continent à la charnière de deux siècles.