Africa

This book aims to provide an African perspective to the global debate on the sustainable use of wild species. Examples and contributions from across the continent illustrate the conservation dilemma - pressure on Africa's ecosystems and the reality of wildlife use by numerous communities. A look into new policy directions and strategies that have emerged from decades of experience, now being taken by governments, local communities, the private sector and the global community, show that wildlife and people can share the land.

At the meeting of the International Tropical Timber Organization held in Bali in 1990, ITTO adopted the target of ensuring that all tropical timber marketed internationally should, by the year 2000, come from forests that are managed sustainably. This study is an attempt to determine whether the member countries of the ITTO have a legal and administrative basis for managing their production forests in ways which will allow these forests to contribute to biological diversity conservation.

This publication consists of four parts – the first contains reports on the wildlife legislation of 45 African States. Each report gives a general overview of the existing law, and summarizes the provisions of the legislation dealing with national and international trade. The second part contains bibliographic information on each relevant legal instrument together with an abstract, and the species covered.