An African initiative to protect the continent's rich bio-diversity and protected areas will be launched tomorrow during the fifth World Parks Congress here as part of African efforts to link developmental issues with conservation. A network of African conservationalists, experts and Protected Areas managers will share information on how best to conserve protected areas and look for best practice models.

The move by Africans to protect their natural resources will be the highlight of the Congress's Africa Day deliberation, where environmental challenges of the continent will be addressed by a high level panel of experts and government officials. Mohamed Bakarr, Vice President of Research at the Centre for Applied Bio-diversity Science at Conservation International, said the initiative would be linked to environmental programmes of the New Partnership for Africa's Development (Nepad) where it would get the highest level of recognition. Nepad is the socio-economic recovery plan of the African Union. “The African Initiative is a response for Africans to fully get behind protected areas and for Africans to embrace protected areas as part of developmental issues that address their socio-economic challenges. Protecting bio-diversity is not new to Africans but has always been part of their daily life. We would be mobilising Africans to see the importance of protected areas,” said Bakarr. African experts would be looking at the Congress to adopt resolutions from the African initiative and make it part of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN).

Bakarr said the African initiative on protected areas would be linked to Nepad and would form an integral part of the African Ministerial Conference on Environment. “Nepad is crucial to this process and if we take this through to Nepad we make sure we address nature conservation at the highest level,” he said. In an effort to get funding for Africa's protected areas, the Congress would also see the launch of the Africa Protected Areas Trust Fund, that would be a funding mechanism to ensure that the continent's rich bio-diversity and protected areas get the necessary financial resources. “The Trust fund will be a flexible source of funding because we cannot only rely on governments for such crucial funds to conserve Africa's bio-diversity,” said Bakarr.

It is however unclear where the funds for the Trust would originate. IUCN Director for Global Programme William Jackson hailed the Africa initiative for protected areas saying the IUCN would continue to support African initiatives particularly when Africans themselves initiated them. “Africa Day will include a high level panel of African experts and distinguished guests to discuss African challenges on a much broader level. We are happy to engage in such a process as is an initiative by Africans for Africa. IUCN is engaged in Nepad programmes that support environmental action plan particularly when civil society is participating in that process,” said Jackson. – BuaNews.