RESPECTING RIGHTS, RESOURCES, AND LIVELIHOODS
Resource Africa supports rural African community efforts to secure their rights to access and use their natural resources in order to sustain their livelihoods. We help to build strong platforms for collaboration, knowledge and skills sharing among community-based organisations and other stakeholders across southern Africa and beyond.
We believe that when rights are upheld and incentives for conservation are provided to those who live with wildlife there will be positive conservation outcomes benefitting people and nature. We therefore support joint advocacy initiatives to ensure community voices are heard on international platforms where decisions are made that materially affect their lives.
Our Vision
Empowered and motivated communities effectively exercising their rights to sustainably manage, benefit from, and conserve their natural resources.
Our Mission
To support southern African communities’ efforts to exercise their rights and enjoy thriving livelihoods by promoting global, regional, and national commitments and actions towards policy, market and legal reforms that secure local people’s rights to own, control and benefit from natural resources, especially land, wildlife, forests and water.
Guiding Principles
- Human rights are central to our work, recognising their interdependence with the integrity of the natural environment.
- Sustainable use of wildlife and ecosystems by communities and rural people is a basic human right recognised in both national and international law.
- Addressing land and resource tenure, governance, enhanced livelihoods, gender equality, equity and empowerment as integral to our approach.
Our Work
We focus on the following four pillars of community-led, people-centred conservation:
Expanding Community Conservation
Building Local Capacity and Resilience
Amplifying Community Voices
Creating Awareness of Rights to Resources
Latest Blogs
- UK attitudes towards hunting trophy imports
Savanta, a leading data, market research and advisory company, conducted an online survey of 4,002 Britons on the subject of trophy hunting, commissioned by Resource Africa South Africa with funding from Jamma International. The results reveal a clear lack of understanding among the British public of trophy hunting and conservation in African countries that would… Read More »UK attitudes towards hunting trophy imports - Report on the Hunting Trophies (Import Prohibition) Bill debated in the UK House of Commons
Report on the Hunting Trophies (Import Prohibition) Bill debated in the UK House of Commons [Click to download full report] - Why Southern African Communities Must Climb the Conservation Governance Ladder
Why Southern African Communities Must Climb the Conservation Governance Ladder A ground-breaking global review of Indigenous peoples and local communities engaged in conservation reveals that more equitable community-led governance systems lead to better conservation and social outcomes. Increasing the level of engagement and decision-making power held by communities can therefore positively transform environmental conservation while… Read More »Why Southern African Communities Must Climb the Conservation Governance Ladder
