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Thr> Development Context for Conservation 



Sound development is essential to effective conservation 



On-going conservation efforts are ultimately doomed to fail if 

 the basic needs and aspirations of the majority of people 

 cannot be met. These needs are great in Africa, and strong 

 emphasis must be placed on the alleviation of poverty and 

 progress in health, education, and family planning services. 

 In order to meet these needs and yet not compromise biological 

 conservation, development processes must divert pressures from 

 remnant wild, b 10 log ical 1 y- rich areas. 



The primary role of a development agency should be to promote 

 economic, social and political development 



L'S development assistance should support activities which have 

 the objective of improving the long-term well-being of human 

 populations and societies. In Africa, this requires 

 substantial investment in human resource development and 

 appropriate production spheres, including the basics of food 

 and fuel. The maintenance of an adequate representation of 

 undeveloped wildlands and diverse lifeforms should also be 

 recognized as an important part of the development process. 

 This is particularly true in Africa, where wildlands and 

 wildlife are in fact a major economic resource, valuable for 

 local consumptive use, international tourism and safari 

 hunt 1 ng . 



Development should be sustainable 



The concept of sustainable development emphasizes a continuous 

 flow of economic benefits with minimal social and 

 environmental costs. As such, it is a radical departure from 

 current approaches which generally place the accent on short- 

 term economic benefits and fail to account for environmental 

 and social costs in economic analyses. However, in those 

 African regions where land tenure, political tenure, or 

 economic outlooks are insecure, short-term strategies will 

 continue to be followed. 



Sustainable development should be promoted first on already- 

 mod i f i ed 1 ands 



Major development should focus on changing current land use 

 practices in the existing agricultural, industrial, and urban 

 zones which have already been converted from a wild state. 

 This is due to several factors: the potential for remnant 

 natural ecosystems to serve as "engines for development" is 

 extremely limited by their scale, fragility, inaccessibility, 

 and increasing scarcity. -In addition, given that much of 



