The Africa Keystone Protected Area Partnership is a collaboration between African communities and governments, as well as NGOs and funders, to safeguard the ecosystems most vital to the continent’s biodiversity and socioeconomic future.

At the first African Protected and Conserved Area Congress held in Rwanda in 2022, African leaders issued the Kigali Call to Action for People and Nature, which emphasizes the vital role of protected and conserved areas in contributing to economic development, supporting livelihoods and cultures, and safeguarding nature. Subsequently, in 2023 eleven African Heads of State signed the Miombo Forest Initiative, which calls for the protection and conservation of miombo forest ecosystems.

In response to these calls to action, we propose that African leaders and communities, as well as NGOs and funders, come together in a bold new partnership to permanently safeguard the continent’s “Keystone Protected Areas”. We call these large, biodiverse areas Keystones because without them, the broader arch of nature-based economies and “30x30”, the UN Global Biodiversity Framework target (that all African nations signed up to) to protect 30% of land and ocean by 2030, cannot succeed.
 
This partnership will not only benefit the more than 70 million people that currently live in nature-based economic zones around these areas, but also the ~250 million Africans that rely on Keystone Protected Areas for their water supply, and the more than 24 million people whose jobs depend
on wildlife tourism. Africa relies on its rich ecosystems for jobs and for food security: 50% of rainfall on agricultural areas in Africa evaporates from intact forests on the continent itself, and 50 million Indigenous people in Africa rely on intact ecosystems for food, medicine and cultural practices.
 
The Africa Keystone Protected Area Partnership is supported by the Rob Walton Foundation.