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7 May 2007
The Government of the Republic of Algeria has officially joined the World Conservation Union (IUCN) as its 84th State member. Located in Northern Africa, bordering the Mediterranean Sea, between Morocco and Tunisia , the Republic of Algeria is the second largest country in Africa (after Sudan ). The Sahara desert is covering 90% of its territory (2,300,000 square kilometers) and the fight against desertification is one of the major challenges of this country. “The World Conservation Union welcomes the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Algeria. Its decision to join the Union demonstrates a strong commitment to sustainable development and permits the Union to strengthen its links with the country,” said Julia Marton-Lefèvre, IUCN Director General. “IUCN is proud of its new member. This has been a coordinated effort between the IUCN secretariat and the council. We still have a way to go, but this is a very good example of working together,” said Zohir Sekkal, IUCN Councillor for Africa and founder of the Mouvement Ecologique Algérien. Algerian biodiversity represents one of the most diverse in the Mediterranean basin, mainly because of the presence of very rare species like the Audouin's gull, the Kabylie Nuthatch, the Monk seal, and the Barbary red deer , according to the Algerian Direction de la Conservation de la Biodiversité - Ministère de l'Aménagement du Territoire et de l'Environnement. Algeria has developed a National Biodiversity Strategy which focuses on the development of protected areas, the preservation of threatened habitats such as steppes, forests, mountains, agricultural zones and marine areas and the creation of sustainable development zones. The strategy will be implemented through biological resource restoration, inventories of flora and fauna, genetic banks, the creation of new protected areas and landscape management. (http://www.mate-dz.org/doc_strateg_1.pdf) An emerging issue in Algeria is the protection of medicinal plants. Most of Algeria 's endangered and threatened plants have medicinal properties, and there is an increasing demand for herbal remedies. IUCN members from Algeria participated in the development of a database on medicinal plants in Northern Africa . For more information, please see: http://iucn.org/places/medoffice/ The Government of Algeria is party to key environmental agreements including the Convention on Biological Diversity, the Convention on Climate Change, the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification, the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora, the Ramsar Convention, Hazardous Wastes and Law of the Sea. For more information on this new IUCN member, please see:
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