African Convention on the Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (revised, "Maputo Convention")

The revised African Convention on the Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources, known as the Maputo Convention, was adopted by the African Union at Maputo, Mozambique on 11 July 2003 and entered into force on 23 July 2016. It is a deliberate modernisation of the 1968 Algiers Convention of the Organization of African Unity rather than a replacement for it, updating that 48-year-old framework to incorporate the approaches of the Convention on Biological Diversity and the UN Convention to Combat Desertification.

The choice not to fold into those global treaties is the point of the instrument. The Convention keeps Africa's own framework, with its own Conference of Parties and its own Secretariat, alongside the global conventions rather than deferring to them. Its stated purpose, in the African Union's official description, is to encourage individual and joint action for the conservation, utilization and development of soil, water, flora and fauna, for the present and future welfare of humankind.

Where many framework conventions stop at aspiration, this one gives itself machinery. Establishing both a Conference of Parties and a dedicated Secretariat for implementation and administration was a specific design decision, made so that the Convention's provisions could be enforced rather than merely declared. That institutional weight is what distinguishes it from a statement of continental intent.

The Convention also writes people into conservation rather than around them. It explicitly recognises the importance of people in conservation and aims to empower local communities through education and training and through recognition of their traditional rights and indigenous knowledge. Community knowledge is treated as a conservation asset, not an obstacle to be managed around. The original 1968 Algiers text did not carry that emphasis.

Its adoption history records the real difficulty of the work. Adopted at the African Union's 2nd Ordinary Session of the Assembly, the Convention then took thirteen years to gather the ratifications needed for entry into force. Political agreement on binding continental environmental law came well before the ratifications that made it operative. The complete text is held in the African Union treaty repository.