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Africa, The Conservation Continent? Future-Making and the Globalization of Wildlife Protection
Hauke-Peter Vehrs and Michael Bollig
Tanganyika has every reason to be proud of the part she played in this big common effort, in hastening the day when Africa will be the shining example to the world of a continent which, fully aware of the incomparable, irreplaceable value of its natural wealth, has devised ways of wise husbandry, avoiding unneeded destruction and achieving a sense of interrelationship between man and his environment in the interests of its own peoples and of mankind in general.
Monod at the Arusha Conference 1961 (IUCN 1963: 16)
Africa has been at the receiving end of the monikers of others, from the pejorative ‘dark’ continent of the 19th century to be labelled more recently, first, as ‘hopeless’, and then, a decade later, as ‘rising’ by The Economist. It’s high time for Africa to carve out its own epithet. The Conservation Continent is a positive option for many good reasons… There are many tough decisions to be made in Africa in the aftermath of Covid-19. By viewing this as less of a crisis and more of an opportunity, it may be possible to use this unprecedented pandemic to pivot Africa from its current development course and ensure growth in an economically and environmentally sustainable way.
(Desalegn et al. 2020)