Cooperation for Wildlife Management in SADC

Wildlife is a potential natural resource of the SADC region. SADC countries, excluding the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and the islands, have 39 % of their total surface area as protected areas and a large population of wildlife, especially elephants (242,469) accounting for 39% of all African elephants (Said et al, 1995). 

SADC has adopted the Protocol on Wildlife Conservation and Law Enforcement as the basic platform for regional cooperation and integration in wildlife management. The Protocol clearly identified two aspects that will guide the regional cooperation and integration in wildlife management. The first one is the establishing of common approaches to the conservation and sustainable use of wildlife resources, and the second one is on law and enforcement i.e. effective enforcement of laws governing the use of resources.

On the technical aspects, Article six to Article eleven are the core part of this Protocol, which lays out the details on how this protocol must be implemented, what issues to be covered and so far, and what are the focus areas for the development of programmes and projects. The protocol entered into force on 30 November 2003 after its ratification by at least two thirds of the Member States.