Sustainable use can be a powerful conservation tool, but only if it is defined. Few terms in conservation generate as much heat, and as little shared understanding, as sustainable use. Across Africa, it is raised by policymakers, conservationists, traditional healers, hunters, traders, communities and commercial interests alike. Yet too often it is used to mean whatever best suits the speaker’s agenda.

As debates intensify around sustainable use frameworks on the continent, we must confront a difficult but necessary truth: sustainable use itself is not the problem. The real risk lies in how loosely the term is defined, selectively applied and, in some cases, deliberately distorted until it becomes broad enough to justify almost anything. If Africa is serious about securing a future where people and nature coexist, then sustainable use must be recovered as a disciplined, evidence-based concept, not a rhetorical shield for overexploitation.

Why sustainable use matters in an African context

Across Africa, biodiversity is not separate from people’s lives. For many indigenous peoples and local communities, nature underpins culture, spirituality, health, identity and livelihoods. Traditional healers rely on plants and animals to practise their craft, often guided by customary rules, seasonal cycles and deep ecological understanding. In some landscapes, regulated hunting has also historically been positioned as a land-use option linked to wildlife retention and rural income. In principle, sustainable use recognises these realities. When grounded in stewardship, restraint and accountability, it can support conservation outcomes while respecting rights and livelihoods. Communities across the continent have long practised forms of use that maintained ecological balance, and their knowledge systems often contain insights that modern conservation science is still rediscovering.

A strong example comes from Namibia’s communal conservancy model, where community custodianship, rights over wildlife and strict governance frameworks have contributed to the recovery of species such as black rhino, elephants and lions. While not without challenges, the model demonstrates that when rights, incentives and ecological limits are aligned, sustainable use can support conservation rather than undermine it. But respect for these systems cannot mean abandoning ecological limits.

Across Africa, biodiversity loss is accelerating due to habitat destruction, climate change, illegal trade and unsustainable offtake. In this context, not all species and not all forms of use can be sustained, even where they are rooted in tradition or framed as conservation tools. Vultures poisoned or harvested for belief-based use, pangolins trafficked under the guise of ancestral practice, cycads removed faster than they can regenerate, and slow-breeding species hunted in already fragmented landscapes are not hypothetical concerns. They are unfolding across the continent in real time. A stark example is the collapse of vulture populations across southern and eastern Africa, driven by infrastructure development, poisoning, belief-based use and illegal trade. Despite cultural significance and historical use, scientific evidence shows that current levels of offtake are incompatible with species survival. In response, some traditional healer associations have partnered with conservation organisations to promote alternatives and awareness, illustrating that adaptation is possible when information and trust are shared. This highlights a critical point: sustainable use is not guaranteed by tradition, legality or intent alone. It must be continually tested against ecological reality.

Nowhere is the misuse of sustainable use more evident than in parts of the hunting debate. Too often, sustainable use is reduced to a simplistic idea: if an animal can be used without disappearing immediately, the use must be sustainable. This is a dangerous oversimplification. Sustainability is not about whether use can continue for a few years, or whether quotas exist on paper. It is about population trends, ecosystem function, governance quality, enforcement capacity, cumulative impacts and long-term resilience, particularly in the face of climate change. In some African contexts, tightly regulated hunting systems have historically contributed to land retention for wildlife and generated revenue for conservation and communities and ignoring this complexity helps no one. The hunting sector has certainly made more concerted efforts to align more closely with long-term conservation goals in recent times, and change is happening. Albeit slowly.

At the same time, evidence from parts of central and west Africa shows how weak governance, poor monitoring and commercial pressure can turn hunting into a driver of decline, even where it is technically legal. When “sustainable use” becomes shorthand for “use that generates income”, without transparent data and independent oversight, it shifts from a conservation tool to a convenient narrative. Sustainable use cannot be defined by use alone. It must be defined by outcomes.

The greatest risk facing Africa today is not disagreement over sustainable use, it is the way the term is increasingly exploited. Under its banner, we have seen attempts to:

• Justify the expanded commercialisation of threatened species;
• Mask illegal harvesting and trade as cultural or subsistence use;
• Promote hunting or breeding operations without demonstrable conservation benefit;
• Inflate offtake quotas in data-poor contexts; and
• Greenwash extractive activities that degrade ecosystems.
• This is not sustainable use. It is the erosion of credibility, and ultimately, of biodiversity.

A different way forward: collaboration, evidence and mutual respect

From the perspective of the Endangered Wildlife Trust, the path forward is not about choosing between conservation and use, or between science and culture. It is about bringing them into honest conversation. A credible sustainable use framework across Africa must include:

• Science-based ecological limits, particularly for threatened, slow-breeding and keystone species;
• Collaboration and mutual learning between conservationists, traditional healers, hunters and community leaders;
• Clear differentiation between subsistence, cultural and commercial use, recognising that commercialisation dramatically increases pressure on species;
• Strong governance and enforcement to prevent exploitation and illegal trade; and
• Fair benefit-sharing and viable alternatives, reducing pressure on biodiversity rather than intensifying it.

Traditional practitioners and local communities are not obstacles to conservation. They are essential partners. Equally, science is not an imposition on culture, but a tool to safeguard the very resources that culture depends on. Africa’s biodiversity is extraordinary, but it is not infinite. Sustainable use can be a powerful conservation tool, but only if it is defined narrowly enough to mean something and applied cautiously enough to work.

This debate is not about ideology. It is about integrity. About resisting convenient narratives. About recognising that conservation, culture, commercialisation and livelihoods are deeply intertwined yet ultimately constrained by ecological reality.

In the end, sustainable use is not measured by how long exploitation can continue, but by whether species, ecosystems and communities remain resilient long after the use has stopped. If we get that right, sustainable use can support Africa’s future. If we get it wrong, it will simply become another name for loss and Africa cannot afford that.