Africa Region
The SCB Africa Region grew out of humble beginnings and now has an active membership of more than 500 individuals globally. This is the result of a meeting of thirty-five conservation scientists and practitioners who gathered in Nairobi, Kenya in September 2001 to deliberate on conservation biology issues in Africa.
In Duluth (USA) 2003, at SCB's 17th annual meeting, members of the Region developed various strategies to confront the challenges faced. One outstanding contribution from the Duluth meeting was sponsored symposium organized by the Africa Region at SCB's 18th annual meeting in New York City in July / August, 2004. The output is a Special Issue of the high ‘impact factor’ Biological Conservation Journal (Volume 134 Issue 2) published by Elsevier Science. The region has in recent times taken steps to recruit young scientists (with special programs for young women) and people from the social science disciplines to be part of this community.
Over the years, the Region has organized three Region congresses in Tanzania (2009), Ghana (2011), and Morocco (2016), as well as hosted the 2007 International Congress for Conservation Biology (ICCB) in South Africa, and ICCB 2023 in Kigali, Rwanda. The Region also created a Young Women in Conservation Biology (YWCB) working group, as well as the African Conservation Telegraph (ACT) newsletter. The Region has released three policy statements and collaborated with scientific journals to publish special issues in Biological Conservation (Volume 134 Issue 2) and a virtual collection in Conservation Science & Practice. The Region boasts of eight SCB Chapters in Nigeria, Cameroon, Zimbabwe, Ghana, Kenya, South Africa, Madagascar and Rwanda and hopes to create many more in the near future. Members also benefit from the e-mentoring programme to support their scientific manuscripts and grant proposals, periodic free SCB membership, and graduate student research grants.
We welcome you to join the Africa Region. Bienvenue! Please take some time to explore the rest of the Africa Region website. Follow the links in the sidebar on the right under "Africa Region."
Annual Reports
- 2019 Region annual report can be downloaded here
- 2020 Region annual report can be downloaded here
- 2021 Region annual report can be downloaded here
- 2022 Region annual report can be downloaded here
Governance
- Africa Region bylaws (updated 2016)
How can you contribute?
- Join the SCB Africa Region
- Join the YWCB
- Donate funds to support membership and projects
- Write policy statements
- Contribute to the ACT newsletter or join as a volunteer editor
Africa Region Members Photo
Africa Region members photo taken during ICCB in Cartagena, Columbia in July 2017
Africa Region members photo taken during ICCB in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia in July 2019
Letter to the Governor of Oyo State Nigeria: Halting the Destruction of the Ogunpa Forest Reserve in Ibadan, Oyo State
Read the letter from the SCB Nigeria Chapter and Africa Region on the destruction of the Ogunpa Forest Reserve located behind Agodi Gardens, in Ibadan, Oyo State, Nigeria.
Conservation Science and Practice Virtual Africa Issue
Conservation Science and Practice Special Section: Emerging Issues in African Conservation
In December 2020, the scientific journal Conservation Science and Practice published a virtual issue untituled “Special Section: emerging issues in African Conservation”. Articles are freely available to read and download.
Articles published are:
- Special Section on African Conservation: A periodic opportunity to highlight conservation science from Africa
- Evaluation of low-cost consumer-grade UAVs for conducting comprehensive high-frequency population censuses of hippopotamus populations
- A decade and a half of learning from Madagascar's first locally managed marine area
- Using Theory of Change to improve post-2020 conservation: A proposed framework and recommendations for use
- Local community benefits from elephants: Can willingness to support anti-poaching efforts be strengthened?
- Evidence for increasing human-wildlife conflict despite a financial compensation scheme on the edge of a Ugandan National Park
- Consequences of survey method for estimating hunters' harvest rates
- Everyone is normal: Consistent livestock management norms and demographic clusters in Kenya and Zimbabwe
Click here for a complete table of contents, including authors and to download.
Special Issue of Biological Conservation on Africa
In 2007 the the scientific journal Biological Conservation published a special issue (v134i2) devoted exclusively to conservation on the African continent. Topics originated from Africa Section Capacity Building Symposium organized by Norbert J.
Cordeiro, Neil Burgess, Delali B. Dovie, Beth A. Kaplin and Andy Plumptre at SCB's 2004 International Congress for Conservation Biology at Columbia University in New York City, New York.
Among the more than 10 papers presented in the journal were:
- Harvesting of non-timber forest products and implications for conservation in two montane forests of East Africa
- The biodiversity of the Albertine Rift
- Conservation in areas of high population densitity in sub-Saharan Africa
- Correlations among species distribution, human density and human infrastructure across the high biodiversity tropical mountains of Africa
- Wildlife hunting practices and bushmeat dynamics of the Banyangi and Mbo people of Southwestern Cameroon
Click here for a complete table of contents, including authors and page numbers. Members of SCB who subscribe to Biological Conservation may read this issue online by logging into their SCB account. All developing country members may also read this issue online via their SCB account.