Africa Is One Of The Areas That Is Known To Be Very Geologically Important

Africa is one of the areas that is known to be very geologically important with concern to the secrets of the past history of the earth itself, but has not been examined very carefully due to the lack of knowledge on geological processes in the country. Africa actually has in the past few years been able to tap into a rich resource that does not come from the environment, but actually is man-made so to speak. Of course the economic resource which is spoken of is simply put, Tourism (Reimold, 1999, 470). Africa has become in recent years a popular area for vacations, pilgrimages, and hunting trips (Reimold, 1999, 470). The hordes that flock to the warm water beaches each year are ever increasing and are a major supplier of the country's per capita value year after year. The recent increase in traffic to Africa can possibly be attributed to the ease of travel (i.e. air travel, cruise ships, etc.) and to the economic prosperity of other developed nations. More tourism means a healthier economy for those parts of Africa that contain travel destinations and an overall stronger economic foothold on the international level.
However, along with heavier traffic comes more pollution, habitat degradation, and sprawl. It is due to this new tourist factor that new laws and policies are being passed by the African government to try to stem the environmental destruction, but still allow the spread of African geotourism. The environment is what draws visitors to the area, so the destruction of it would be detrimental to the actual goal of the country (to gain economic prosperity and financial freedom).
Lessons Learned
Geoconservation is just as important as or even more important than biological conservation is to the ecology of the environment (Brilha, 2002, 273). It is the minerals, water, and nutrients that supply the building blocks of sugar for plants, which will in turn produce food for the animals. The animals will then decay, releasing the nutrients and minerals from their bodies back into the ground which will compact and purify the nutrients to begin the cycle all over again. Essentially, the geological makeup of an area is the framework from which all other parts of the environment are prospered. While biological conservation deals with the living things on earth, geoconservationism deals with the material obtained from the biological specimens once they are dead.
The examples of Tasmania, Australia and the African countries show two vastly different reasons for instating geoconservatinist methods, but do indicate what positive outcomes could result from said methods. Tasmania wanted to increase the conservation of geological (and some biological) resources based solely on their intrinsic values as pieces of natural history and ecologically significant evidence.