Why Africa should adopt this legal hub model

From the newsletter

Zambia has launched its Sustainable Wildlife Management (SWM) Programme Legal Hub, a first-of-its-kind online platform giving open public access to all national laws and regulations covering wildlife, forestry, land tenure, animal health and ecotourism. The Hub could help Africa turn years of fragmented legal mapping into one user-friendly digital resource.

• It was developed by the government, in partnership with the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the Center for International Forestry Research and World Agroforestry (CIFOR-ICRAF) and funded by the European Union. 

• The hub serves conservationists managing wildlife and natural resources sustainably. It brings together years of legal mapping and analysis into one digital resource designed to support evidence-based policy and community participation in conservation.

More details

• According to the stakeholders, access to such information will enable citizens to participate more effectively in wildlife management and food security initiatives. They described the platform as a tool for strengthening environmental governance and ensuring that wildlife resources are managed legally and sustainably.

• The Hub supports implementation of the Zambia Wildlife Act No. 14 of 2015 and related policies, linking statutory law with customary systems used by rural communities. In Nyawa Chiefdom, where the SWM Programme supports the Mize Community Conservancy, it provides reference material to align community practices with national wildlife and land-use regulations.

• Within the Kavango-Zambezi (KAZA) Transfrontier Conservation Area, which spans five countries, the model is expected to facilitate cooperation and policy harmonisation. Dr. Nyambe Nyambe, Executive Director of the KAZA Secretariat, said the Hub will help connect conservation, food security and community rights across borders. 

• According to a 2019 paper published in the Journal for Nature Conservation, many African countries face biodiversity data deficiencies caused by weak monitoring systems and poor institutional coordination. The Legal Hub directly addresses these gaps by consolidating information, strengthening policy access, informing all conservation stakeholders and supporting long-term data-driven environmental governance.

• The study highlights that most biodiversity monitoring initiatives in Africa are short-term and limited to selected species. Integrating wildlife, forests, land and food security laws into one system provides the legal and institutional foundation required for continuous biodiversity documentation. This approach could help standardise data collection and improve conservation planning across African nations.

Our take

• It is great to create conservation infrastructure, but they can only succeed if people are trained on how to use the

• Practical training is therefore an important part of integrating new technology and tools in conservation across Africa.