SASUSG was founded in 1994 as part of the World Conservation Union (IUCN). Membership is voluntary and is based on individual specialization (not institutions). The diverse and extensive membership which is invaluable, is drawn from throughout the southern African region, and ranges from social to environmental specialists, economists, key government officials. etc. The common characteristic of the group is the promotion of the philosophy that landholders should be the primary beneficiaries of biodiversity conservation, and that conservation is an important component of, and contributor to, livelihood and economic strategies. Our challenge is:
“ How can we best get our membership to contribute to making land and natural resource use more sustainable in southern Africa, with the ultimate objective being improved conservation and livelihoods at the household level”.
SASUSG’s strength is its 100 diverse professionals from across the region, many of who have played key roles in the southern African crucible of conservation innovation.
In the past SASUSG has developed technical documents discussing sustainable use, the most noteworthy being a pamphlet describing sustainable use, based on exhaustive research with southern African communities. However, noting how such document-based approaches have failed to adequately communicate the message from the grassroots to international fora, SASUSG in 1995/6 used local or village theater to great effect in putting across its message to a diverse international audience. SASUSG developed the play, “Guardians of Eden” which won many theatrical awards (e.g. at Edinburgh Festival) and was also influential in stating southern Africa’s sustainable use position, at the Montreal World Conservation Congress.
The present aim of SASUSG is to provide a quality intellectual forum that supports and on occasions, represents southern African government, non-government, private-sector and community interests on issues relating to sustainable natural resource management, especially considering that
- The constituency to which we hold ourselves ultimately accountable is the land and landholders of our region – be these park managers, private landholders or communities.
- Our reason for existence is to support our constituency, using the mechanism of IUCN to voice their concerns, articulate their achievements and parade their innovation.
- Finally, we strive to maintain the credibility and quality of our SASUSG products and our professionalism, to maintain and improve the diversity of our membership, and to mentor a new generation of specialists concerned with sustainable natural resource management and use issues.
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