Key Biodiversity Areas (KBAs) are the most important places in the world for species and their habitats. The KBA Programme supports the identification, mapping, monitoring and conservation of KBAs to help safeguard the most critical sites for nature on our planet – from rain forests to reefs, mountains to marshes, deserts to grasslands and to the deepest parts of the oceans.

KBAs Criteria

To date, six countries in Africa have established KBA National Coordination Groups, five of whom have completed or are in the process of identifying KBAs including Mozambique in the Eastern and Southern Africa region. The identification of KBAs and their recognition in national policy is important to national conservation and development planning. In that

• Countries can better target their conservation investments such as in protected and conserved area expansion.
• Development planning can prevent negative impacts on the region’s globally important sites.
• Such a map would assist companies in avoiding the high cost of planning developments in biologically-sensitive areas and the subsequent conflict with conservation interests that ensues.