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In African countries, where poor rural populations are the majority and where the wealthy minority not only depends on resource extraction but also holds the political power, nature conservation is not a domestic priority. The larger the country the more patchy and incomplete the conservation effort is likely to be. Into this situation, add war and subtract government. Understandably, predictions are pessimistic for the conservation of biodiversity in large, warring African countries such as the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). This case study proposes, however, that given a major international effort adequately supported by both national and international conservation organizations, as well as individual conservationists, these predictions could be proved wrong. What are needed are long-term guarantees of support and training for national conservationists and long-term maintenance funding for protected areas deemed to be of international conservation value.
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