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African Convention on the Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Convention on Conservation [1]
African Convention on the Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources
ContextNature conservation
SignedSeptember 15, 1968 (1968-09-15)
LocationAlgiers
EffectiveJune 16, 1969 (1969-06-16)
Signatories
Ratifiers
30 Countries
  • Algeria
  • Burkina Faso
  • Cameroon
  • Central African Republic
  • Comoros
  • Congo
  • Côte d'Ivoire
  • Democratic Republic of the Congo
  • Djibouti
  • Egypt
  • Gabon
  • Ghana
  • Kenya
  • Liberia
  • Madagascar
  • Malawi
  • Mali
  • Mozambique
  • Niger
  • Nigeria
  • Rwanda
  • Senegal
  • Seychelles
  • Sudan
  • Swaziland
  • Tanzania
  • Togo
  • Tunisia
  • Uganda
  • Zambia

The African Convention on the Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (known also as Algiers Convention) is a continent-wide agreement signed in 1968 in Algiers. It supersedes the Convention Relative to the Preservation of Fauna and Flora in their Natural State of 1933 and has been superseded by the African Convention on Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (revised) signed in Maputo in 2003.

Background

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International cooperation to conserve the wildlife and natural resources of Africa was first realized by the colonizing powers of Great Britain, France, Germany, Portugal, and Spain on May 19, 1900 with the International agreement to preserve African wildlife(King Leopold's Congo Free State did not participate). The treaty prohibited the killing of certain African animals and "all other animals which each local government judges necessary to protect, either because of their usefulness or because of their rarity and danger of disappearance.”[2] The treaty was proposed because of the rapid depletion of African big game which was being hunted for pleasure by Europeans, with a secondary motive being to preserve the remarkable and novel wildlife and fauna of the continent. African animal populations at the time were suffering because of deforestation, breech-loaded firearms, growth in human populations, and overhunting.[3] This treaty, however, did not address the entire African ecosystem but only a handful of species. The Convention Relative to the Preservation of Fauna and Flora in their Natural State began to address the conservation of whole African ecosystems. When European colonies gained independence as sovereign nations, pressure for a new and more comprehensive conservation treaty began to mount.

Treaty Content and Obligations

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The treaty was influenced by other existing international law and tenets of the UN charter, and sought to balance development through exploitation of natural resources with their conservation. It obliges all parties to take conservation measures relating to national wildlife, soil, water resources.[4]

Notes

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  1. ^ African Union 2010.
  2. ^ Bowman, Michael; Davies, Peter; Redgwell, Catherine (2010-12-23). Lyster's International Wildlife Law. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-52729-3.
  3. ^ Raja, Nussaïbah B. (2022-10-17). "Colonialism shaped today's biodiversity". Nature Ecology & Evolution. 6 (11): 1597–1598. doi:10.1038/s41559-022-01903-y. ISSN 2397-334X.
  4. ^ https://au.int/sites/default/files/treaties/41550-treaty-Charter_ConservationNature_NaturalResources.pdf, African Union

References

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African Union (2010-03-02), List of Countries which have Signed, Ratified/Adhered (PDF), archived from the original (PDF) on 2012-09-02