Environment Protection in Africa: a Panorama of the Law and Practice

Abstract

Modern environmental law and policy in Africa have their roots in the political economy of colonialism. The ecological effects of resources exploitation were dealt with under treaties applied to the colonies to preserve useful and/or demise-endangered flora and fauna. National parks or nature or forest reserves were established to achieve this goal. In the main, flora exploitation and the hunting, killing and capture of fauna were controlled by restrictions on access imposed by the reserves. There was no integrated approach to resource and environment management. Therefore, how effectively each colonial administration observed the treaties determined the scope of the discharge of environment protection responsibility towards the land and resources of each colony.¹ Against this background, the aim of this article is to demonstrate that it is still possible for African states to design workable legislative and regulatory regimes for resources exploitation and environmental protection.