Around Pemba, Tanzania, marine protected areas offer a practical question for Africa’s conservation plans: how can nature be protected in ways that work for the people who live beside it? The answer matters as governments face a 2030 deadline to conserve more of the continent’s land and sea.
The Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, agreed in 2022, calls for at least 30% of land, inland waters, coasts and seas to be effectively conserved and fairly managed by 2030. But reaching the percentage is only part of the task. Skytruth’s tracker put African protection at 19.9% of land and 17.2% of marine areas in October 2026. Those figures are above the global averages for land, 18.7%, and marine areas, 10%, but still fall short of the 30% goal. Delegates meeting in Yerevan, Armenia, for the U.N. biodiversity conference from Oct. 19 to 30 faced the likelihood that the target would not be met.
Daniel Marnewick, a conservation expert with the International Union for Conservation of Nature, says the aim should be more than marking protected areas on a map. Conservation must safeguard wildlife and ecosystems while earning local support and lasting over time. That can be difficult when governments and communities also face demands for farming, roads, energy projects and mining.
Ghana shows how national priorities can shift. Gold mining has become more important to the economy, and a November 2022 order made it easier to approve mining in areas rich in biodiversity. Permits rose quickly and conservation work was hindered. The order was revoked in 2025, though pressure from development remains a wider challenge. An October report by the environmental nonprofit Earth Insight found that oil and gas blocks overlap 8% of protected land across the Amazon, Central America, the Congo Basin and Southeast Asia; mining concessions overlap 7%.
In Liberia, the proposed Kwa National Park would protect about 1,720 square kilometers of rainforest in Grand Gedeh county. The relatively sparsely populated forest is home to endangered western chimpanzees. Yet cacao farming is expanding in community-controlled forests around the proposed park, and some plantations are moving into the area. Commercial farming is banned in Kwa, but cacao gives many residents income in a county with high poverty and few other economic choices. Some residents oppose forest conversion, while others depend on the crop. Winning support for the park and respect for its boundaries therefore means confronting real needs, not just drawing a line.
Marnewick argues that conservation and livelihoods depend on each other. “Fences and fines” can harm people who rely on forests or fisheries for food and income. The marine protected areas around Pemba are presented as examples of how conservation can be shaped with local communities, though the wider lesson applies across very different places: plans need to account for the people who will live with them.
Africa’s progress toward 30 by 30 will be measured not only in hectares or square kilometers, but also in whether protected areas can endure alongside local livelihoods. With the 2030 deadline approaching, community involvement is not an extra step; it is central to making protection meaningful.