Conservation in South Africa

I was asked to write something on my experience as an intern at IUCN for last month's newsletter. This is what I came up with:

"Conservation in South Africa through the eyes of a Canadian intern"

In early August of this year I arrived in Pretoria as one of fifteen “Young Canadian Leaders for a Sustainable Future,” sent overseas each year by Canada's International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD). Having only recently retired from the comfortable life of academia, this has been my first chance to apply years of study in environmental geography and international affairs to some real world issues.

At the mid-point in my six-month internship it is possible for me now to identify a few themes that have run through my thoughts and experiences at IUCN-SA so far. Two, in particular, set the South African context far apart from the Canadian one I have come from. An awareness of each has greatly deepened my appreciation for the challenges facing conservation efforts around the world, but has equally broadened my understanding of the important role healthy environments can play in meeting pressing human needs.

The twin realities of poverty and HIV/AIDS shape the role and place demands on the World Conservation Union and others working in the region to an extent far greater than I had appreciated. Poverty reduction is surely the most important national priority in South Africa, and conservation strategies are untenable without regard to the vast need for improvements in employment, health, nutrition and other development priorities. Perhaps it goes without saying, but the past three months have driven home for me the fact that conservation and development are two sides of the same coin – they will be forged together, or not at all.

Of course, the conservation of nature cannot be pursued in isolation from development in any country, and Canada is no exception. Many Canadians, and businesses in particular, were strongly opposed to ratifying the Kyoto Protocol, for example, because of fears that it would devastate the economy. I understand, therefore, that those of us who are committed to conservation must find ways to take sustainable development beyond the realm of a behavioural paradigm, and integrate it as a mechanism for growth and a provider of services into local, national and global economies. Conservation is going to have to cover its costs because, for the foreseeable future at least, most people will not be willing to pay for it.

Whereas in Canada we can probably muddle along for some time yet without truly making this link, however, South Africa cannot. Conservation efforts that do not contribute to human need will fall flat, and development that is not environmentally sustainable will perpetuate, not alleviate, poverty. Compounding this challenge, which the World Conservation Union is confronting head-on with initiatives such as Natural Futures (this issue), the HIV/AIDS epidemic is gravely affecting the capacity of communities, conservation organizations and governments to sustain resource management strategies that depend on the health, knowledge and skills of trained and committed individuals.

Whatever new lessons I receive in the second half of my internship, the need for solutions that meet the needs of people and environment together will stay with me when I return to Canada. There I hope I will find new opportunities to contribute to this challenge, which is clearly a global one, and share the knowledge, and commitment too, that I have gained from my experiences in South Africa.

Philip Akins, Project Officer, IUCN-SA