Biodiversity Conservation in the East Africa Marine Ecoregion

Ecoregion conservation: Theory and Practice

The scale and approach of conservation efforts around the world has recently been re-examined. WWF and other major institutions concerned with the use of natural resources (World Conservation Union (IUCN), World Resources Institute (WRI), The Nature Conservancy (TNC), Conservation International (CI) and UNEP), concluded that conservation in the 21st Century needs to:

• be driven by a common vision and raise a collective voice for conservation;
• use networks of protected areas within managed coastlines as the core component of conservation planning;
• be planned and implemented over time scales compatible with ecological processes (30-50 years);
• combine rigorous science, traditional knowledge and practical politics, and;
• be integrated in the broader social, economic, and policy factors critical to sustainability.

Working with the stakeholders
Together these institutions recognised that the traditional focus on species, protected areas, environmental policy and public information, though reasonably successful in the past, will not be enough to meet the challenges of the future. Instead, working with stakeholders at much larger geographical scales, and better integration into development planning is seen as the appropriate approach.

The Ecoregion approach supports conservation of biological diversity and ecological processes at broader scales and the links between different species habitats within the bigger picture of national development.

Ecoregion Conservation should not be seen as a separate initiative to replicate what other regional or local initiatives are trying to achieve, but rather to support them to accomplish the conservation of biodiversity. Marine Ecoregion Conservation attempts to harmonise local and international efforts to secure healthy marine and coastal environments in order to provide sustainable benefits for present and future generations.

Creating and sustaining partnerships
To be successful over the long term, Ecoregion Conservation must be multidisciplinary -involving, encouraging and depending upon the participation of all sectors who affect biodiversity or who are affected by it. These stakeholders range from local communities of coastal inhabitants, to national governments, international conservation organisations, and businesses, such as foreign investors and owners of industrial fishing fleets. To achieve this there needs to be a strong emphasis on creating and sustaining partnerships.

Ecoregion Conservation
The Ecoregion Conservation approach is an important tool for bringing stakeholders together to set ambitious conservation goals, to lay out a strategy to reach those goals and to facilitate implementation. This approach aims at focusing even greater attention on regions and boosting the interest and commitment of individual national governments. The potential benefits of the ecoregion approach are that it:

• builds collaboration for conservation;
• creates energy for stakeholder participation;
• generates donor and government support;
• provides options for conservation effort, and;
• integrates conservation in the broader vision of coastal development.