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April 25, 2006 |
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Conservation International and Equatorial Guinea Sign Agreement to Collaborate on Conservation Conservation International (CI) and the Government of Equatorial Guinea have signed an agreement to collaborate on protecting the sub-Saharan African country’s biodiversity.
Equatorial Guinea straddles the Guinean Forests of West Africa Hotspot and the Congo Basin High Biodiversity Wilderness Area. Because of its endemic endangered monkeys, the World Conservation Union’s Primate Specialist Group has ranked Bioko Island as the single most important place in Africa for the conservation of primate diversity. Mainland Equatorial Guinea includes part of one of eleven priority landscapes identified by the Congo Basin Forest Partnership (CBFP), launched at the 2002 Johannesburg World Summit on Sustainable Development. Both CI and the Government of Equatorial Guinea are members of CBFP.
Under the agreement signed April 12, 2006, in Washington, D.C., the government of President Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo formally commits to establishing a National Forest that will increase Equatorial Guinea’s protected areas to 37 percent of its territory, more than any other member of the six-nation Commission for the Forests of Central Africa (COMIFAC), and one of the highest percentages in the world.
In addition, the government formally commits to establish a National Conservation Trust Fund capitalized with at least US$15 million to provide permanent financial support for conservation of Equatorial Guinea’s biodiversity. The trust fund is the first of its kind in Central Africa.
Furthermore, the parties have agreed to negotiate a contract under which CI will provide technical support to establish the National Forest, design the conservation trust fund, increase human and institutional conservation capacity, support the management of the national protected area system, and develop a National Biodiversity Policy.
CI’s goal is to help Equatorial Guinea capitalize on its recent economic prosperity by conserving biodiversity as a natural asset that will benefit its people in perpetuity.
Conservation International (CI) applies innovations in science, economics, policy and community participation to protect the Earth's richest regions of plant and animal diversity in the biodiversity hotspots, high-biodiversity wilderness areas and key marine ecosystems. With headquarters in Washington, D.C., CI works in more than 40 countries on four continents. For more information about CI, visit www.conservation.org. 
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