ISSN 2026-5611 FauneVolume 33, Issue 1 Enhancing natural resources management& for food security in Africa Biodiversity: Its central role in the sustainable development of Africa Cover photo: Malamawa village, Zinder Region, Niger: A girl climbs a baobab tree while looking for baobab leaves to be cooked as a meal. Photo: ©FAO/Luis Tato Nature FauneVolume 33, Issue 1 Biodiversity: Its central role in the sustainable& development of Africa Editor: Nora Berrahmouni FAO Senior Forestry Officer for Africa FOOD AND AGRICULTURE ORGANIZATION OF THE UNITED NATIONS Accra, 2020 Required citation: FAO. 2020. Biodiversity: Its central role in the sustainable development of Africa, Nature & Faune, Volume 33, Issue 1. Accra. 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FAO information products are available on the FAO website (www.fao.org/publications) and can be purchased through [email protected]. Requests for commercial use should be submitted via: www.fao.org/contact-us/ licence-request. Queries regarding rights and licensing should be submitted to: [email protected]. Board of Reviewers Mafa Chipeta Kristina Rodina Food Security Adviser Forestry Officer, FAO Limbe, Malawi Rome, Italy Michiel Christiaan Laker Jeffrey Sayer Emeritus Professor of Soil Science Professor, Forest Landscape Conservation, Pretoria, South Africa University of British Columbia Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada Kay Muir-Leresche Policy Economist/Specialist in Agricultural Fred Kafeero and Natural Resource Economics Natural Resources Specialist Rooiels Cape, South Africa Dar es Salaam, Tanzania August Temu El Hadji M. Sène Agroforestry and Forestry Education Expert Forest Resources Management and Arusha, Tanzania Dry Zone Forestry Specialist Dakar, Senegal Magnus Grylle Forestry Officer, FAO Rome, Italy Advisers: Atse Yapi, Christopher Nugent, Fernando Salinas, René Czudek Coordinators: Daisy Leoncio, Ki Min, Ada Ndeso Atanga Nature&Faune Contents Volume 33, Issue 1 4 Message to Readers 8 Editorial 14 20 28 The Sustainable Trees for Global The World Charter for Wildlife Management Benefits: eradicating Nature revisited: an Programme: conserving poverty one tonne (of African initiative wildlife and improving carbon) at a time food security Country nature-based solutions 34 38 44 49 Benin: Botswana: Cameroon: Ethiopia: Community ecotourism, Developing a Human-gorilla Freshwater fish a means to reconnect framework for conflicts around diversity and its humans with their sustainable coexistence the Lobéké National role in improving environment: between ecotourism Park: Implications the livelihood Case of the Sitatunga and agriculture for conservation and of communities Valley Community local development Natural Park 2 NATURE & FAUNE VOLUME 33 ISSUE 1 78 86 98 Addressing Diversity of restoration Africa’s biodiversity human-wildlife conflict plants for Africa’s mainstreaming across in Africa: challenges Great Green Wall agricultural sectors and achievements implementation Country nature-based solutions 57 64 70 Namibia and Tanzania: Senegal: Zimbabwe: Protecting Africa’s soil in Plant cover trends in a context Ecotourism and sustainable protected areas against of drought and pastoral development in rural crusting, compaction and activities’ resilience in the communities bordering erosion in the context of Matam Region: The case of the protected areas: a case Sustainable Development Ferlo Biosphere Reserve (RBF) study of opportunities and Goals (SDGs) of the challenges for Mahenye, United Nations case studies Chipinge District NATURE & FAUNE VOLUME 33 ISSUE 1 3 MessagetoReaders Foreword By Abebe Haile-Gabriel FAO Assistant Director-General and Regional Representative for Africa 4 NATURE & FAUNE VOLUME 33 ISSUE 1 Readers Photo: ©FAO/Luis Tato NATURE & FAUNE VOLUME 33 ISSUE 1 5 Message to Readers Africa boasts of a rich diversity with its living The importance of biodiversity is not overlooked organisms comprising around a quarter of the by our strategic development partners. There global total. If this diversity is not properly are two UN Decades spearheaded by the Food conserved and sustainably used, its loss would and Agriculture Organization of the United have rippling effects on the goods and ecosystem Nations (FAO) in collaboration with other UN services on which we all depend on, severely agencies: the UN Decade for Family Farming threatening our food and health security. 2019–2028 with IFAD and the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration 2021–2030 with UNEP. Human activities exert pressure on biodiversity. These two decades are interlocked in many Due to the global food production system, and aspects in terms of timeline and collaboration. its reliance on intensification, 75 percent of the food produced globally is generated from only By putting family farming and all family-based 12 plants and 5 animal species, and in the last production models at the focus of interventions, century, more than 90 percent of crop varieties the UN Decade for Family Farming will contribute disappeared from farmers’ fields. Habitat to a world free of hunger and poverty, where conversion due to agricultural activity is also natural resources are managed sustainably, leading to loss of forests, wetlands, grasslands, and where each and every single individual and ecosystem services. It is a future challenge in the world has access to safe and nutritious for the region to provide sufficient nutritious food. We believe this model has the potential and healthy food to a fast-growing population to make a big impact, as family farms occupy while protecting and restoring biodiversity. around 70 to 80 percent of farmland worldwide and indigenous people and local communities As we enter 2020 and the last decade of the manage 33 percent of forests globally. Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), we are bringing biodiversity as one of the According to FAO Africa’s recent publication cogs in the wheel towards the achievement Regional Synthesis for the State of the World’s of these ambitious, collective goals. Biodiversity for Food and Agriculture, in African smallholder agricultural landscapes, home 6 NATURE & FAUNE VOLUME 33 ISSUE 1 From the cover, Photo: ©FAO/Luis Tato gardens constitute a particularly important As we welcome the two timely UN Decades, the source of biodiversity for food and agriculture. FAO Regional Office for Africa is glad to present the Additionally, their contribution to the richness and newly-revamped version of Nature and Faune, kick- diversity of plant species is increasingly gaining starting with the theme on biodiversity. Through interest among researchers and practitioners. inspirational stories on biodiversity conservation and sustainable use in different African countries, The UN Decade