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Biodiversity & Forest

Title: Africa Regional Centres of Excellence - ArcX: Biodiversity & Forest Component. 

Main Objective: The Biodiversity & Forest Component of the ArcX programme focuses on the sustainable management of biodiversity, forests, protected areas, and ecosystems across Africa. Its goal is to maintain ecosystem services essential for the well-being of local populations.

Specific Objectives:

  1. Establish Regional Centres of Excellence (RCoEs) as reference points for biodiversity data to inform policies;
  2. Develop indicators and information systems to monitor the EU-supported NaturAfrica initiative;
  3. Enhance cross-sectoral and cross-regional coordination among stakeholders to address challenges in Science, Technology, and Innovations (STI) for Africa’s green transition;
  4. Focus on metrics for decision-making, effective management of protected areas, development of forest information systems, and supporting national conservation efforts and global reporting (e.g., NBSAPs).

Starting Year: 2024
Implementation Duration: 48-54 months

Areas of Impact:

  1. Data Collection and Sharing: Harmonising and making biodiversity, forestry, and ecosystem data accessible through open-source systems;
  2. Scientific and Policy Support: Delivering scientific and policy analyses to improve regional decision-making;
  3. Capacity Building: Strengthening institutional and human capacities for better coordination among biodiversity stakeholders;
  4. Global Engagement: Collaborating with continental and global institutions like the CBD to sustain biodiversity conservation and ecosystem services.

Target Groups: Continental bodies, research institutions, academia, civil society, private sector, local communities, and all African citizens.

ArcX Partners: See ArcX Partners card and the ArcX Partnership Map.

Component Coordinator: Center for International Forestry Research and World Agroforestry (CIFOR-ICRAF).

Leading Regional Centre of Excellence (RCoE): Centre de Suivi Ecologique (CSE) (RCoE Western Africa), Observatoire des Forets d'Afrique Centrale (OFAC) (RCoE Central Africa), Regional Centre for Mapping of Resources for Development (RCMRD) (RCoE Southern and Eastern Africa)

Scientific and Technical Support from EC - DG JRC: JRC Unit D6 (Nature Conservation and Observations).

Protected Areas Governance and Equity
Protected Areas Governance and Equity
Protected Area Dashboards
Protected Area Dashboards
Protected Area Management Effectiveness
Protected Area Management Effectiveness
Atlas of African Protected Areas
Atlas of African Protected Areas

Go to:

To make a selection from a map visit the Datasets Page
Available Resources
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CIFOR-ICRAF

The Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR) and World Agroforestry (ICRAF) (CIFOR-ICRAF) addresses local challenges and opportunities while providing solutions to global problems for forests, landscapes, people and the planet.
Besides the CIFOR-ICRAF headquater, the ArcX programme involves two CIFOR-ICRAF country offices, namely the one in Kenya and in Cameroon.

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JRC Map of Forest Cover for year 2020
The EC JRC global map of forest cover provides a spatially explicit representation of forest presence and absence for the year 2020 at 10m spatial resolution.The year 2020 corresponds to the cut-off d...
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More than paper parks
The effective protection of coastal and marine ecosystems
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Carbon storage in Africa
Nature-based climate solutions should look beyond forests for opportunities in open ecosystems
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Nature: an economic asset
The facets of an African economy based on wildlife resources
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Terrestrial Ecoregions
The RESOLVE Ecoregions dataset, updated in 2017, offers a depiction of the 846 terrestrial ecoregions that represent our planet.
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Protected Areas
Shapefile showing the location of protected areas in Africa as national parcs and natural reserves.
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Tree Cover
Forests worldwide are in a state of flux, with accelerating losses in some regions and gains in others. Given the recognized importance of forest ecosystem services, quantification of global forest ex...
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Tree Cover Gain
Forests worldwide are in a state of flux, with accelerating losses in some regions and gains in others. Given the recognized importance of forest ecosystem services, quantification of global forest ex...
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Tree Cover Loss
Forests worldwide are in a state of flux, with accelerating losses in some regions and gains in others. Given the recognized importance of forest ecosystem services, quantification of global forest ex...
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Total Carbon
Carbon storage in biomass (biological material) is a key link in the global carbon cycle, and consequently for climate change mitigation. Forests in particular are an important carbon sink that help r...
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Land Fragmentation
Habitat fragmentation occurs when natural habitat is broken up by non-natural land uses. For this layer, land fragmentation is expressed as the Natural Land Cover Pattern Index (NLPI), which classifie...
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Key Landscapes for Conservation
Some areas in Africa represent spectacular, still viable examples of Africa’s wildlife and wild places. They are of such outstanding importance and value that they should be conserved at all costs and...
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