AWF president urges African governments to take conservation as valid source of revenue
Charly Facheux, senior vice president of the Africa Wildlife Foundation (AWF), has made a case for governments and businesses to invest in
conservation as a valid source of revenue.
Facheux was speaking to Down To Earth (DTE) in an exclusive interview on the sidelines of training for West African journalists specialising on environmental reporting.
“We are now trying to bring the value of conservation to government so
that they can see the contribution of conservation into the GDP,”
Facheux told DTE.
He said mining and logging companies need to “reinvest in the
preservation of that ecosystem, because that is going to make their
business sustainable.”
Edited excerpts:
What characterises AWF's work in Africa?
We were created in 1961 and are now 63 years old as an organisation. AWF is the first African wildlife foundation. We are based in Africa. Our roots are in Africa. And our approach is people centered. We think that we care about environment, wildlife and nature. But we care more about people, because we see people as critical to the protection and conservation of nature.
Can you give an overview of your conservation efforts in the Congo
Basin?
We were instrumental in the creation of one of the main conservation schools in Africa: The College of African Wildlife Management, Mweka in Tanzania, and the Ecole de Faune de Garoua in Cameroon. Now, we have been working in the Congo Basin for almost 18 years. We have worked in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) for almost 17 years and in Cameroon for around 10 years.
And the level of achievement we have been having in these countries is
really enormous. For example, in DRC, we have been doing land use
planning that has been approved and gazetted by the government.
In Cameroon, the work we have been doing in Faro, in Dja, and in Campo
is really demonstrating that we can conserve and also help communities improve their revenue. We have been able to show that the indigenous pygmy communities of the Basin can also improve their lives by benefiting from the resources they have around them.
It is an issue of how we optimise the resources we have in a way that people can generate revenue and improve their well-being. I like to say “well-being” because using just improving livelihoods for me is not appropriate.
What exactly have you done to improve the well-being of the indigenous Baka?
That is a good question. We worked with a group of Baka in Cameroon. We introduced them to sustainable cocoa farming techniques.
They have, as a group, improved their income from $5,000 to $25,000 and now to $50,000.
But we also know the risks that that come when some households have more income. So, we also need to educate them on how to make good decisions.
We want them to understand the decisions they need to make for themselves and for their families. That will help them improve their well-being and that of their families.
Most of them are now sending their kids to schools. They understand that they have to go to hospital when they are sick. They are also developing small businesses.
What are some of the outstanding results you have obtained with
respect to some wildlife species that were virtually disappearing from
the Faro National Park?
We have now been able to almost double the population of lions there.
It’s the same case for elephants and giraffes. This is really the result of the work we are doing with the community.
For example, we do have a trans-border protected area with Nigeria, and that means there is need for collaboration. Even at the height of the Boko Haram insurgency, there was trans-boundary collaboration between communities in Faro (Cameroon) and Gashaka-Gumti in Nigeria, and that helped keep many animals alive.
You are talking about collaboration at a time when Cameroon has signed a convention with Nigeria to collaborate along the border in order to fight cross-border trafficking in wildlife resources. Were you involved in negotiations?
We were involved, and our country director Norbert Sonne from Cameroon was even present in Abuja [for the signing of the Convention].
How is it playing out on the ground? How does implementation look like?
The need for that collaboration really came from the ground. We also
have a forum that we call CBFP (Congo-Basin Forest Partnership), where such collaboration has been discussed many times. There is general agreement that for trans-boundary collaboration to work, there needs to be not just political agreement, but real partnership on the ground.
Statistics indicate that by 2100, Africa will represent a third of the global population. About 33 per cent of wildlife habitat would have been lost. What is the danger in these kinds of statistics?
The war for the future is going to be around water and space. The global human population is growing very fast, but space is not. It's even decreasing because of climate change. So, there's going to be a high competition for space, land, resources and food. And the conflicts between wildlife and people are the first steps toward the conflict between people and people.
You have linked the Congo Basin to the supply of water to the Nile. Can you explain how this is important for Africa?
Take the example of Nairobi. We know that the watershed in Nairobi is
the Mau Forest. That forest is getting drier. We also know that the presence of certain key species is important for this ecosystem to continue to play the role of providing and ensuring that those waters are not getting dry or scarce. There are some areas in Niger where the water disappears because there is no more forest.
You'll be surprised to know that if we bring back the trees, the rivers will come back too. This is the magic of nature.
Ensuring that those ecosystems continue to play their role is very important. They are deteriorating. It is evident that the water is getting scarcer since people are digging deeper to find it. These are clear and evident signs that we need to be careful about the way we manage nature — especially the Congo Basin that supplies water to most of these countries.
There is always the question of funding. How do you navigate that?
That is the elephant in the room. I think we need to first appreciate the support we are having from our donors. The work we have been doing
in Cameroon is mainly funded by the European Union, and also by the Germans, and some foundations. We also have fundraisings. We are now looking for private sector funding, which is a big contributor that we didn't have yet. We have to make them understand that the survival of their
businesses is very much linked with how nature is being protected.
How do you convince a government to invest in conservation? What are the trade-offs?
In most cases, conservation has not been a high priority for governments. We are now trying to bring the value of conservation to government so that they can see its contribution into the gross domestic product (GDP). We are developing what we call a ‘biodiversity economy’. That has been done in Zimbabwe. It is now currently underway in Mozambique, and we will extend it later to Sierra Leone. This work is going to bring the real value of conservation in terms of cash, job creation, improving the well-being of the population and adding to the GDP. I don't see any government that will be able to see that and not really value conservation.
Can you elaborate more on this biodiversity economy that you are talking about?
Let me take an example of the Congo Basin countries. Generally, when
we talk about the budget, it is mostly about the forest and the wood. The wood in the forest is not even one-tenth of what the environment or nature can produce. You also have the possibility of carbon finance and climate financing. Generally, we are always looking on the surface. But the underground is even richer in terms of providing resources. A biodiversity economy is considering nature as an asset and giving it a value.
What do you say to corporations that are more interested in drawing
economic benefits from nature and not conserving it?
I think the moment where we saw mining and logging concessions as threats to conservation is behind us. We need to now consider them as allies because we need them. They have resources. They need to do business. But they should understand that reinvesting in the preservation of ecosystems is going to make their business sustainable. It's also going to make sure that the ecosystem continues to provide various
services.