GEO-6 Regional Assessment for Africa
Illegal Trade in Wild Fauna and Flora, and requested AMCEN and other partners to spearhead this effort. At its 15th
Ordinary Session in Cairo in March 2015, AMCEN
encouraged stakeholders to contribute to the formulation of the Strategy. While this Strategy would complement existing initiatives such as the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), the sub- regional Lusaka Agreement on Cooperative Enforcement Operations directed at Illegal Trade in Wild Fauna and Flora and a series of national laws and policies, it would promote a coordinated regional response to safeguard Africa’s wildlife. Another important development in stemming this set of environmental crimes is the decision of the Assembly of the African Union at its 23rd
Ordinary Session to expand the
jurisdiction of the African Court of Justice and Human Rights to include illicit exploitation of natural resources (AU 2014).
With little use of agrochemicals (Druilhe and Barreiro-Hurlé 2012), much of the agriculture in Africa is organic, although few farmers in the region have obtained the necessary certification because of its prohibitive cost (Yussefi and Willer 2003). Organic farming has positive effects on species richness and the attendant soil organisms and ecological services such as pollination that are essential to agriculture. Yet because Africa’s arable land is underused, there is scope to sustainably increase agricultural
productivity.
After all, agricultural species are part of biodiversity, and agriculture needs other biodiversity as well, so increasing agricultural productivity and conserving biodiversity need not be incompatible goals. In this regard, farmers should be sensitized to desist from detrimental agricultural practices such as slash-and-burn farming, overgrazing, cultivation of marginal land, and draining of wetlands.
Parties to the CBD set 2020 as the deadline for identifying, prioritizing and managing invasion pathways in order to prevent the introduction and establishment of invasive alien species. Target 8 of SDG 15 reiterates this objective, stressing that the attendant actions should focus on the invasive alien species that inhabit both land and water ecosystems.
All the region’s 54 countries have either developed or are developing National Biodiversity Strategies and Action Plans (NBSAPs), which are the principal instruments for implementing the CBD at national levels. Most of these NBSAPs contain action plans on preventing, controlling and eradicating invasive alien species. In addition, some of the region’s countries – such as South Africa and Swaziland – have established databases on invasive alien species. Establishing national inventories in the other countries, filling the data gaps (Genovesi et al. 2013) and creating standardized meta-databases (Faulkner et al. 2015) would accelerate achievement of this target. Globalized transport, trade, and tourism that facilitate deliberate human release and species escapes (CBD 2010) and parasite and pathogen transmission by wildlife, as well as unaided transboundary spread (Hulme 2015) have increased the number of invasive alien species in the region (Irlich et al. 2014; NEMA 2011) and continue to impede attainment of this target worldwide. Better monitoring would help to bridge the achievement gap.
Despite Africa’s considerable human population pressure, the region records a high proportion of terrestrial protected areas. This has been largely attributed to the rise in the number of private, community-based and co-managed protected areas (Stolton et al. 2014). If this momentum is sustained, Africa will surpass the target of establishing 17 per cent of its total terrestrial area as protected by 2020 (CBD 2012). Madagascar’s Makira National Park management model profiled in Box 2.4.1 showcases ways in which seemingly discrete goals can be accomplished with careful planning. While increasing the size of protected areas is vital to protecting biodiversity, stricter enforcement of laws and bylaws establishing these areas is equally important.
Under the auspices of the Eastern Africa Regional Seas Programme (which has 10 participating states) and the Western Africa Regional Seas Programme (which has 22 participating states), notable progress has been made in establishing marine protected areas in coastal waters. As
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