Concerns raised by NGOs over proposed expansion of protected areas in Africa

Forest Peoples Programme, Rainforest Foundation UK and Minority Rights International have viewed a draft concept note for a proposed EU flagship intervention in Africa aimed at addressing biodiversity loss and expanding protected areas, the NaturAfrica initiative.

We welcome the EU’s recognition of the risk that rampant biodiversity loss in Africa poses, and its efforts to address the drivers of deforestation that consumption in the EU is partly responsible for. However, we believe the draft NaturAfrica concept note is problematic on many levels. We fear that as it stands, the programme risks further entrenching a flawed and unsustainable conservation model that has led to serious human rights abuses and dispossession of some of the world’s most vulnerable people while doing little for ecosystems in Africa.

These concerns have been raised with the EU directly, seeking an engaged discussion on how investing in conservation, particularly in Africa, can be transformed and reformed and how the EU could play a leading role in that.

Photo credit: Annie Spratt

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