|
Equator Initiative Events
|
 |
Securing Africa’s Future: Biodiversity and Health – HIV/AIDS
Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania
9 - 11 June 2004 |
AIDS (Acquired ImmunoDeficiency Syndrome which is the late stage of infection caused by HIV, Human Immunodeficiency Virus) causes long periods of illness, and is significantly reducing life expectancy across nations and regions. According to UNAIDS, an estimated 34-46 million people are currently living with HIV/AIDS. Approximately 3 million people died globally from AIDS in 2003, approximately 2.3 million in Sub-Saharan Africa. The disease is impacting local and national economies, governance structures, agricultural production, food security, and education. These societal changes directly and indirectly impact biodiversity conservation and natural resource management.
Increased Natural Resource Use by AIDS-Impacted Households
As rural households lose salary remittances from cities or the capacity for heavy agricultural labor due to HIV/AIDS, they turn increasingly to natural resources as the ultimate livelihood safety net. In many areas medicinal plants and wild foods are being overcollected, bushmeat hunting has increased, and timber consumption for coffins and charcoal production is causing deforestation. This unsustainable use of resources erodes the resource base for the future. Some protected areas face increasing threat as people seek access to natural resources that are no longer available outside of these areas. This occurs at a time when park guards may be less able to perform their duties as they themselves are ill from the disease, taking care of HIV-infected family members, or attending funerals.
Changes in Land Use Due to AIDS
Land management is changing as people rely on practices such as fire or extensive farming that can be more damaging to vegetation and wildlife. Traditional knowledge of sustainable land management and resource use is being lost as parents die before passing it on to their children. It is also likely that resource control systems by traditional leaders such as hunting of bushmeat are breaking down. In addition, the issue of land inheritance, particularly in places where widows and orphans cannot inherit land because of national land policies or traditional practices also contributes to poverty and resource scarcity for the neediest. These factors, taken together, often result in unsustainable use of land and resources and the severe reduction of biodiversity.
Loss of Conservation Capacity
Wildlife management is also affected directly through loss of human capacity. The conservation community has already lost key champions, leaders and staff in government agencies, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), communities, training and research organizations, and private sector. National park and wildlife conservation personnel are especially vulnerable to HIV/AIDS as many work in remote areas away from their families for a large proportion of time. This makes them more likely to have sexual relations with other partners. They may not have access to HIV/AIDS awareness information or condoms. When staff are lost, the institutional experience and memory of the conservation organization suffers. The full scale of the impact upon conservation capacity and institutional development has not yet been fully realized. This situation is expected to get much worse as the HIV/AIDS pandemic peaks in many countries in Africa and grows more severe in other regions of the world.
What can be done?
The workshop will explore the important role that the biodiversity conservation sector can play in helping to deal with the impacts of the HIV/AIDS pandemic on the capacity of staff working on conservation, protected area management, and communities involved in community-based natural resource management. It will examine how to help AIDS-impacted households to use their natural resources more sustainably. Potential activities include:
- Developing organizational policies on HIV/AIDS
- Building conservation capacity
- Working with AIDS-Impacted Households on Conservation-Based Enterprise
Collaborating with other sectors (e.g. agriculture and food security) on alternative livelihood strategies using sustainable natural resource management.
|
