the world's biodiversity hotspots this
particular area is one of the hottest of
the hot spots especially for primate
diversity it has the richest primate
biodiversity and all of Africa the only
place that even comes close to the place
called the Albertine rift which is in
East Africa it is so enriched with life
and that life is it's precarious right
now there's so much change going on the
reason to focus on on this particular
area is because these ten years are the
ten years that are going to make the
difference
we know that Africa is the continent
that is most likely to have the effects
of climate change climate warming now is
happening at a rate that's unprecedented
it's a it at a rate that we haven't seen
in sixty eight million years in addition
to that Africa is facing enormous
challenges its population is expected to
quadruple by the end of the century that
we're seeing enormous threats to forests
regions as mineral extraction increases
and agriculture increases we're at a
critical point biodiversity is what we
need to have healthy functioning because
and we need healthy functioning
ecosystems for a healthy functioning
biosphere and we need a healthy
functioning biosphere to live so
preserving biodiversity in general
obviously and the hope is that we can
sort of identify those sweet spots of
areas that we can protect that are going
to maximize the amount of adaptive
variation to Alette species persist in
the face of climate change so the idea
of sort of having a balanced stock
portfolio that whatever comes out the
other side with climate change we're
going to be in a position to have
maximized the number of species that we
can protect one of the very unique
aspects of this work we're doing is that
as opposed to doing research and
publishing a paper and hoping someone
reads it we're also being very proactive
in how we're engaging with
decision-makers we're taking the next
step and holding the policy workshops
where we bring in the various ministries
talk about the project and get them on
board at an early stage we're trying to
really partner with them and work with
them as policies are formulated and new
protected areas are established to make
sure that we can inform the
decision-makers with the science we're
doing
Central African countries are not very
well developed and they will have a
strong desire to develop in the future
it is important to already start to
alert the population of Central Africa
to the importance of biodiversity so
when they undergo development they will
take into account these questions in
order to not do what others have already
done in the world people say our
backgrounds like a different view and
see how we can interact and interconnect
with each other so that in the future we
can see once again as well it is all
about the people and it's all about
seeing young people be able to make
their own research careers and they
become the teachers and scholars of the
future and for me my success will be
seeing all the students that train go on
to great wonderful careers and that they
will be leading the charge to save
Africa's biodiversity because you know
the reality is even in ten years you can
turn the tide ten years is not going to
solve it it's the next fifty years so
you always have to think about the next
generation and what you're going to do
for them beyond building that
institutional capacity within Central
Africa
well the great benefit of this project
has really been to bring lots of US
students and postdocs over to the
Central African continent to get them
exposed to this wonderful part of the
world and see them get really excited
about an area they probably would never
have thought of going to even if they
don't end up basically in science for
career there'll be much better global
citizens as a result of this