39 



Africa's Environment^ The Final Frontier 



Statement of R. Michael Wright 



President 

 The African Wildlife Foundation 



before the 



Sub-Committee on Africa 

 House Committee on International Relations 



July 17, 1996 



MADAME Chair, members of the sub-committee, thank you for the opportunity to present the 

 testimony of the African Wildlife Foundation on African environmental and natural resource 

 issues. 



I am R. Michael Wright, President of the African Wildlife Foundation. African Wildlife 

 Foundation has existed for 35 years, and is the only U.S. -based conservation organization focused 

 solely on the conservation and protection of wildlife on the continent. We have 50,000 members 

 in the United States. African Wildlife Foundation is headquartered in Washington, DC, with the 

 majority of our staff based in Africa. Historically we have worked in east Africa, but in recent 

 years have extended our activity, contacts and interactions with colleagues to southern Africa. 



There is much interest among the American public in the state of Africa's environment. Africa's 

 majestic migrations and megafauna are among the remarkable wildlife spectacles left in the world. 

 In addition, there has been growing recognition of the importance of the biological diversity of 

 Africa's tropical forests. On the one hand, the African population is projected to exceed one 

 billion by the year 2025. But Africa's human population density is still substantially below that of 

 much of the developing world. It includes 150 million people living in acute poverty—barely $1 

 per day. In sub-Saharan Africa biological resources, particularly for Africa's rural poor, produce 

 the food that is eaten, the fuel for cooking, the medicine for health, and the products that generate 

 essential income. 



Because of the link between human dependence and the continent's natural resources, African 

 Wildlife Foundation recognizes that addressing issues of the environment in Africa is not a narrow 

 scientific concern — it will require modified government policy — including strengthening civil 

 society, building the institutional capacity and training of the natural resource staff, and addressing 

 the fiindamental problems of poverty in the rural landscape—poverty which often has the face of a 

 female farmer eking out a living from an arid and unforgiving landscape. 



The complexity of solutions to Afiica's environmental challenge unfortunately does not draw the 

 same degree of immediate public understanding as does the wildlife in all its wonder. 



