What’s it about in short: arti­cle adsress­ing the aims of BirdLife Inter­na­tional, IUCN and WWF to bal­ance extrac­tives indus­tries in Africa with social and envieon­men­tal concerns

When was it released: June 12, 2015

By whom: Ken Mwathe, BirdLife

More info: http://www.birdlife.org/africa/news/extractives-industries-africa-blessing-or-curse

Short extract:

Another source of con­cern is the impact that the Extrac­tive Indus­try is hav­ing on bio­di­ver­sity, ecosys­tems and local com­mu­ni­ties. Across Africa, case stud­ies abound  in which extrac­tion of min­er­als, for­est prod­ucts, oil and gas has left dev­as­tated land­scapes and dis­il­lu­sioned com­mu­ni­ties. Is there a mid­dle ground? Can extrac­tion of resources pos­i­tively con­tribute to national economies while also respect­ing the needs of ecosys­tems, bio­di­ver­sity and people?

BirdLife Inter­na­tional, IUCN and WWF came together recently to try to address this very ques­tion. Con­cerned by the scale and rate of expan­sion of extrac­tive indu­utry activ­i­ties in Africa, the coali­tion brought this issue to the dis­cus­sion table dur­ing the 15^th Ses­sion of the African Min­is­te­r­ial Con­fer­ence on the Envi­ron­ment (AMCEN), held between 2 and 6 March 2015 in Cairo, Egypt.