Guiding the African High Level Discussion on Extractives and Protected Areas

1 April 2015

The BIOPAMA programme produced a brief high-level assessment of the overlap between current and planned Extractive Industries with Protected Areas in the region for presentation and discussion during the fifteenth session of the African Ministerial Conference on the Environment (AMCEN), Cairo, Egypt, at an IUCN – BirdLife International – WWF side event on 4 March 2015.

This spatial analysis, entitled “Discussion paper: Balancing the exploitation of mineral and hydrocarbon resources with conservation of biodiversity” is key to the strategic approach discussed and in support of the main recommendations made in the side event. The BIOPAMA Observatories for Protected Areas and Biodiversity can play a key role in ensuring that the relevant protected areas data and information is made available for these strategic planning processes. To this end, a more detailed BIOPAMA decision-support product is planned for 2015 to elaborate on the spatial overlaps of extractive industry plans and protected areas in the Eastern African region.

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