Sustainable Conservation: Time for Africa to Rethink the Foundation

Abstract

Global environmental policy and negotiations are important. They are the arenas where we seek to distinguish ourselves from other animals by summoning our empathy and benevolence - so-called humanity - and work collectively towards a common goal. It is a lofty aspiration certainly worth pursuit, albeit we really have little to show for it, either from the negotiating tables or post-negotiations implementation. In the same vein, some conventional economic development theories, including sustainable development and gross domestic product-measured growth, are increasingly being questioned. One such economic hypothesis is founded around the environmental Kuznets curve, which, for Africa, implies that we are too poor to be worrying about environmental conservation. In line with Maslow's hierarchy of needs, it suggests that we should instead strive to increase consumption and accelerate development in order to increase investment in conservation. Here, I contend that this does not seem to augur well for Africa, and conservation advocacy based on these kinds of rationale shall not stand for the environment or biodiversity in the face of other competing interests. I believe that what we need in lieu, in Africa and perhaps elsewhere too, is a deeper recognition and agreement on why/what to conserve. Then, for the things we decide to conserve, we can ponder about how to actually go about doing it. One way we can do this is by changing our tactics at the global arena from hedgehogs to foxes, and, without disregarding the future, also by starting to look back rather than forward, which for us in Africa usually means to the West.