The State of Protected Areas 2020 is a publication produced as part of the Central African Forest
Observatory (OFAC), a specialized unit of the Central African Forests Commission (COMIFAC).
Planning and managing protected areas requires knowledge about their condition and the issues that affect them.

While EdAP 2020 complements and updates the state of play of protected area networks in the sub-region, it innovates above all by dealing in detail with certain themes that were barely outlined in the previous volume (governance, tourism...), or even not addressed at all (human-elephant conflicts, mines and the oil industry...).

The objective of eDAP 2020 is to contribute to a better valorization of approaches and tools for collecting and analyzing data on the management of protected areas in Central Africa. It aims to provide an overview of their importance in the face of global changes but also to include protected areas in national and regional territories. This geographical registration must also be done in connection with the populations living in these territories, in a context of sustainable development in Central Africa. It is this necessary double integration of protected areas that guided the authors throughout the book. This document is prepared for the attention of administrations in charge of protected areas, policy makers, policy makers, technical and financial partners, research institutions, Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) and any third party interested in the conservation of biodiversity in Central Africa.

It places particular emphasis on up-to-date and harmonized data, as well as on analyses to inform decision makers and managers. It does not purport to be comprehensive and cannot deal with all relevant topics in relation to protected areas. It only aims to contribute to the construction of collective intelligence about protected areas and to pave the way for new analyses and syntheses that are relevant and expected by actors in conservation and sustainable development.