Short Abstract

This roundtable aims at discussing how to conciliate biodiversity conservation with rural development in Africa by prioritizing locally defined needs, knowledge, livelihoods, and development pathways while considering global conservation goals.

Long Abstract

Global biodiversity loss is currently one of the most pressing environmental challenges, fostering growing international, regional, and national efforts to strengthen conservation. Yet, evidence has shown that biodiversity conservation initiatives often intersect, and sometimes conflict, with local development priorities, particularly in African rural contexts where livelihoods depend heavily on natural resources.

This round table invites a critical discussion on how biodiversity conservation and rural development can be more effectively reconciled in Africa. It starts from a central tension: while biodiversity conservation generates benefits at national and global scales, many of its social and economic costs are borne locally. At the same time, conservation agendas and implementation models are frequently shaped by external priorities and transferred to rural contexts without sufficient attention to local socio-economic, ecological, and institutional conditions.

The discussion will explore the limits of conservation-based development and one-size-fits-all approaches. Achieving both biodiversity conservation and agricultural and rural development requires strategies tailored to specific socio-ecological contexts and grounded in local priorities, knowledge, and development needs. Rather than reproducing policy models developed in the Global North, conservation efforts in Africa should be embedded within locally appropriate pathways of social and economic transformation. Development agencies and conservation partners may play a decisive role by supporting development strategies that integrate biodiversity objectives with livelihood security, agricultural development, and rural well-being. Such an approach could help reposition biodiversity conservation from an externally imposed constraint to an integral component of sustainable rural development.