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social process. These problems do not respond to simple, large, capital-intensive engineering- 

 based projects, but to complex, local, on-site, labor-intensive cooperative solutions that are the 

 particular strength of NGOs. 



Fifth, a key element of successful rural conservation is to give rural people secure rights to 

 resources and the ability to defend their gains against encroachers. 



Sixth, improvements in the quality of life—better health, increased child survival, greater 

 opportunities for women, and assurances of resource ownership—are preconditions for the 

 population stabilization which is fundamental to slowing the deterioration of Africa's 

 environment. 



Finally, while African Wildlife Foundation is focused heavily on creating successful field projects, 

 success in the field will ultimately fail if it is not integrated with a supportive or at the very least 

 benign policy environment. Fundamental to that policy environment is the role of civil society — 

 democratic, open systems and a strengthened Afiican NGO movement. 



In 1993, the Biodiversity Support Program, a project funded by U.S. A.I.D., produced a 

 document called "African Biodiversity: Foundation for the Future— A Framework for Integrating 

 Biodiversity, Conservation and Sustainable Development." That document listed eight important 

 principles that emerged during the drafting of the report. Although several years have passed, 

 those principles are equally valid today, and are attached to this testimony. 



CONCLUSION 



The major challenge in Afiica in the years ahead will be to reverse the deterioration of the rural 

 environment by forging an alliance between local groups and national governments and linking 

 natural resource concerns with national development strategies. Broad issues of structural 

 adjustment, debt, international trade, commodity prices or misguided political leadership, all 

 frustrate and circumvent many small-scale development and conservation projects. However, 

 debt, trade, structural adjustment, and internal political issues — not the environment — are the 

 paramount immediate concerns of African governments. U.S. leadership has been critical in 

 maintaining a focus on longer term environmental concerns. 



While broad policy and socioeconomic issues continue to be acted out in a theater to 

 which the rural poor are denied access, we have made some progress is the field. The early days 

 of disaster relief for the development community and of strictly protected parks established for the 

 conservation community have given way to involvement in long-term development assistance and 

 natural resource management by these two communities, a merging of interests linking the 

 resource base of Afiica and its people. It is from this common ground that we will be able to 

 reverse the degradation of the African enviroiunent, and secure a future for its people and wildlife. 



