Geoconservation in Africa: State of the art and future challenges

Abstract

The rich African geodiversity is underrepresented among the Earth's geoheritage and still remains to be analyzed and disclosed. This requires inventory and evaluation of geosites with the aim of being protected, as well as valuing and monitoring procedures fostering sustainable development through geoeducation and geotourism.

This work presents the current state of geoconservation in Africa based on a bibliometric and mapping analyses of available literature. A total of 244 online documents were analyzed according to its three epistemological dimensions: Basic, Applied and Technical Applications.

The obtained results show that the different dimensions of geoconservation in Africa are biased and geographically limited. Most of them refer to geoheritage diagnosis, i.e., they correspond to inventory and assessment initiatives concerning territories mainly located on the coast and on the northern and southern edges of the African continent, therefore related to Basic Geoconservation. Results also show that Africa displays different types of geoheritage, a dimension that corresponds to Applied Geoconservation, but geoheritage's diagnosis and typology is scarcely developed. Technical Applications of Geoconservation refer to the set of materials, methods and/or scientific services that are useful to society. They include protection legal instruments and public policies assigned to nature conservation or the production of relevant resources for geoeducation and geotourism. While geotourism can display significant development in Africa, conservation and geoeducation are poorly represented. Such results will allow defining a road map for geoconservation in this continent thus assisting decision makers to establish specific priorities for the conservation of the abiotic dimension of nature in Africa.