Delegates from across Africa opened the first continent-wide gathering on the role of protected areas in securing our planet’s future in Rwanda on Monday.
The IUCN Africa Protected Areas Congress (APAC) comes just months before December’s COP15 summit, when world leaders aim to enact a much-delayed pact to protect nature from the damage caused by human activity.
“Protected areas are vital for the planet’s survival,” said the Director General of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), Bruno Oberle, on the opening day of the talks in the capital Kigali.
“And the more we manage them for the good of people and nature, the more we will build a future where all — people and animals — thrive,” he said on Twitter.
Organizers said APAC will aim to shape the role of protected and conserved areas in protecting African wildlife, providing vital ecosystem services and promoting sustainable development, while preserving the continent’s cultural heritage and traditions.
“It is high time that African leaders put in place strong measures and policies to ensure the destruction of our rich biodiversity is halted,” said Rwandan Prime Minister Edouard Ngirente.
Last month, the 196 members of the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) held negotiations in Nairobi to draft a global biodiversity framework, but made limited progress in resolving differences.
At the heart of the draft COP15 treaty is the determination to designate 30 percent of the world’s land area and oceans as protected areas by 2030.
More than 90 leaders have signed a pledge over the past two years to reverse nature loss by then, declaring the interlinked threats of biodiversity loss and climate change constitute a “planetary emergency.”
According to the latest Protected Planet report from the UN Environment World Conservation Monitoring Center, by 2020 only 17 percent of land habitats and around seven percent of marine areas were protected.
A million species are threatened with extinction, according to UN experts, and global warming is on track to render large parts of the planet uninhabitable.
UN biodiversity experts warned this month that the rampant exploitation of nature poses a threat to the well-being of billions of people around the world who depend on wild species for food, energy and income.
The Kigali gathering runs through July 23 and has attracted more than 2,000 participants from across Africa and beyond, according to organizers.
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