Opinion: Africa’s protected areas are not land banks

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Africa’s wildlife economy is under growing pressure to generate more revenue from protected areas. But this increases the risk of making protected land easier to develop. Richard Vigne argues that the line between making wildlife more valuable and turning protected areas into commercial assets is beginning to blur, and there are consequences. 

• Richard Vigne is the Executive Director of the School of Wildlife Conservation at the African Leadership University. He writes:  "Some reasons for developing protected areas are valid. Africa needs development. Conservation needs money. But there is a line between making wildlife and wild landscapes more valuable, and converting protected land into commercial assets. That line is blurring, and Nairobi National Park is one of the clearest tests of where Africa chooses to draw it."

• He adds that the wildlife economy must create value with protected areas intact and not by gradually making them available for development. 

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