African Geoparks Network: Challenges and perspectives

            For these reasons, the African Association of Women in Geosciences (AAWG, www.aawg.org) created, during the preparatory meeting of its fifth conference held in Abidjan, Ivory Coast in May 2009, the African Geoparks Network (AGN, www.africangeoparksnetwork.org) to promote and conserve the geoheritage of Africa. The AGN aims to identify and make an inventory of the geological sites of outstanding value in Africa; Promote and increase the awareness among policy makers and the general public in Africa, particularly local communities about the necessity of the protection and the valorization of African geological heritage through the creation of geoparks for a sustainable local development; Build the capacity of local population in the field of geoheritage through a strong networking and the organization of conferences, seminars, symposia, training courses and workshops.

            The network aims through its activities to build long-term bridges among people interested in geoheritage, geotourism, geoconservation, environment and sustainable development (researchers, policy makers, economists, geopark and natural heritage sites and local community administrators and leaders, NGOs, business operators, Medias and individuals) in order to promote the Geopark concept and make it a lever of local sustainable development in Africa.

            Within this framework, the AAWG and the AGN organized in collaboration with UNESCO Cairo Office the First International Conference on African and Arabian Geoparks from the 20^th to the 28^thNovember 2011 in El Jadida (Morocco) entitled “Aspiring geoparks in Africa and Arab World”. This first conference received 87 abstracts and had been attended by more than 100 participants from 31 countries representing the five continents. This event comprises, one day pre-conference course on geoconservation and geoparks, two days technical sessions including conferences to build the capacity of the participants and six days post-conference field trip through the Moroccan High-Atlas and the Anti-Atlas Mountains as potential geoparks.

Some photos from the conference

This Conference was an opportunity to build the capacity of the participants, to share experiences and to promote the geoparks concept for society. The conference also plays a crucial role in stimulating scientific collaboration and networking within African and Arabian countries and the international community involved in geoparks and geoconservation. The main outcome of that first conference is “El Jadida Declaration”. It was decided during that conference that the second conference on African and Arabian geoparks will be held in 3 years. The future venue will be decided in one year time in the country that will do much work concerning the promotion and the creation of geoparks. During the next three years, many workshops will be organized in some African and Arabian countries in order to promote the geopark concept and to build the capacity of local population. Three countries (Tunisia, Senegal and Yemen) proposed their candidature to host the next workshops. As a follow up of the conference and in order to promote the African and Arabian Geoheritage, a special publication will be dedicated to the papers presented during the conference.