What is not being managed today, will be lost tomorrow
– Peter Fearnhead, CEO of African Parks
In 2019, the Global Deal for Nature highlighted the need for at least 30% of terrestrial and marine areas to be protected if we are to conserve the planet’s biodiversity, secure essential ecosystem services and prevent the catastrophic consequences of a changing climate. This is a remarkable vision, and strategies to achieve it will differ across regions. In Africa, a pragmatic roadmap to achieve this vision is needed.
The World Database of Protected Areas (WDPA) identifies over 8,000 formally registered protected areas in Africa. Yet most of these areas are too small to provide ecosystem services at scale for long-term resilience. Of these, only 1,050 are larger than 50,000 hectares. In addition, as a result of decades of poor management and a lack of adequate resources, many of these areas are merely “paper parks”, with habitat and biodiversity so depleted that restoration is nearly impossible without extraordinary political and financial support.
An Analysis of Africa’s Protected Areas
© Marcus WestbergDuring 2020, African Parks conducted an internal analysis of the protected area network in Africa, utilising data layers, our quarter-century experience and collective expertise of the various regions in Africa. Considering a number of key elements including landscape size and potential, strength of legislation and ecosystem health and threats, we identified 161 “anchor areas” which can and do play a substantial role as large functioning landscapes that harbour globally significant biodiversity to provide invaluable ecosystem services such as carbon sequestration, clean air and fresh water, while contributing to stability, food security and socio-economic benefits for millions of people.
For the analysis, we focused on areas of large scale that are still relatively ecologically intact. This does not imply that smaller areas do not play a valuable role, as these remain important for the conservation of individual species, as well as for cultural and tourism reasons. However, to conserve biodiversity and unlock the full suite of ecosystem services over the long term, an element of scale is required. Services such as carbon sequestration, water provisioning and resource harvesting require significantly bigger areas to have an impact at a national or global level, and to be sustainable. Sizeable areas offer enough space for all species to be present, enabling full ecological and evolutionary processes to unfold, without intensive human interventions. Larger size also ensures resilience to threats such as climate change, and typically have greater genetic diversity as well as adequate habitat and natural resources to sustain populations during times of adverse conditions.
While these areas only represent a small percentage of the total number of protected areas, they constitute nearly a quarter of the protected surface area in Africa. They also constitute over 85% of Africa’s ecoregions and the unique biodiversity that these harbour.
We noted that if the areas we had identified (some 130 million hectares) were well managed, they would form a backbone for the continent’s conservation strategy, providing expandability into adjacent legislated areas and landscapes. While a number of these have good management in place, more than 50% face threats such as uncontrolled illegal resource harvesting, habitat degradation and resource depletion, and as such need a management solution that, if maintained, would ensure their survival into the future.
Building From the 161 Strategy to Keystone Protected Areas
The 161 Strategy thus became African Parks’ roadmap, the aim of which is to partner with governments and communities to manage 30 protected areas by 2030, covering over 30 million hectares. We believe that if these areas can be secured and well managed, with long-term and clear accountability practices in place, it will provide a solid foundation for broader conservation in these landscapes.
In 2025, this strategy became the inspiration and foundation for a new continent-wide collaboration: The Keystone Protected Areas Partnership. Supported by the Rob Walton Foundation, African Parks Network, Frankfurt Zoological Society, Wildlife Conservation Society and independent experts Ashley Robson and Peter Lindsey used these and other data to analyse the value of critical landscapes. The result was a landmark paper that identifies existing protected areas in Africa that have the potential to collectively make a disproportionately large contribution to biodiversity conservation: Keystone Protected Areas.
The Keystone Protected Areas concept envisages that this limited number of exceptionally valuable protected areas could underpin continent-wide conservation efforts and catalyse action in the wider landscape. The paper is built on and extends the principles of the 161 Strategy, which include:
- Relatively large landscapes that can sustain ecological processes
- Relatively intact ecosystems that still harbour globally significant biodiversity
- Well-connected areas that contribute to resilience and long-term stability
The Keystone Protected Areas concept applies a rigorous dataset and methodology, ensuring that conservation priorities are identified with greater precision and scientific consensus. In this way, it represents a further refined, collaborative vision for safeguarding Africa’s biodiversity at scale. This project exemplifies what can be achieved when organisations, governments, communities, and donors unite behind a shared vision. If such areas are well managed, they will form a solid foundation for the continent’s conservation strategy, providing expandability into adjacent legislated areas and landscapes.
Learn more about the Keystone Protected Areas project here: https://africakeystones.org/. Read the full Keystone Protected Areas paper here. Note that this document was not published in academic journals and has not been peer reviewed at this point.
Mentorship and Support
We believe that our tried-and-tested model, experience and ability to scale offer the best chance of making a significant impact on this number of protected areas, but we cannot do this alone. For this reason, we are nurturing an Incubator Programme through which we work with other management organisations, NGOs, and operators to mentor and provide technical support that can be applied to replicate our model of delegated management. In this way, we aim to help safeguard 15 additional protected areas, spanning 10 million hectares.
These ambitious objectives will contribute significantly to the global target of protecting 30% of the planet to keep it flourishing.