Africa's mineral exploitation in spotlight at SADC workshop

11 Sep 2014

Member states of the Southern Africa Development Community (SADC), representatives of the private sector and conservationists recently took part in the discussions on how to reconcile the development objectives of mineral and hydrocarbon exploitation with protection and sustainable use of biodiversity in the SADC region.

Africa's mineral exploitation in spotlight at SADC workshop

The workshop was convened in collaboration with the EU-funded Biodiversity and Protected Areas Management (BIOPAMA) Programme and the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Pan-African Protected Areas Conservation Programme.

The SADC region is endowed with an abundance of mineral and hydrocarbon resources that have significantly contributed to the economic development of many countries in the region. These resources represent a promising prospect of substantial economic growth in the future, following the discovery of a number of large deposits and reserves of various minerals, metals, oil, and gas in the region.

Mineral resource rich areas also support extraordinary biodiversity that plays a critical role in promoting national economic growth directly through tourism and employment and indirectly through ecosystem services that sustain development and support livelihoods.

Framework for guidelines

The three-day discussions resulted in the elaboration of a framework for Regional Best Practice Guidelines for the Exploitation of Mineral and Hydrocarbon Resources in the SADC Region, as part of the implementation of the SADC Regional Biodiversity Action Plan. This will be the first guideline at the regional level that aims to facilitate the strategic and operational mainstreaming of biodiversity considerations into the development of the extractive industries in the region.

The guidelines will help governments, the extractive industry sector and civil society to identify opportunities and needs for biodiversity conservation during planning, exploitation, and closure of extractive operations.

The collaboration with the SADC Secretariat to host and facilitate this regional meeting is directly in line with the goals of the BIOPAMA programme in Eastern and Southern Africa that focuses on supporting cross-sectoral engagement for integrated sustainable planning with sectors and stakeholders active at the interface of protected areas.

The outcomes of this meeting will feed into the agenda of the next meeting of SADC Ministers responsible for Environment and Natural Resources, the upcoming African Ministerial Conference on Environment and the IUCN World Parks Congress 2014 to demonstrate the need to prioritise working with the extractive industries sector in relation to biodiversity conservation.