We write on behalf of 209 scientists (see go.nature.com/3sa16p9) to endorse a new initiative by the African Research Universities Alliance and the Guild of European Research-Intensive Universities (see go.nature.com/3b364hj). This calls for greater investment by the African Union and the European Union in Africa’s universities, to help them address global challenges such as public health, climate change and good governance. We strongly encourage expansion of the initiative to encompass environmental and biodiversity issues that are crucial to the continent’s future.

Safeguarding Africa’s extraordinary natural resources and biodiversity — the backbone of much of its economy and livelihood — demands a new generation of African scientists trained in environmental sciences. Experts are needed in conservation science and environmental economics, as well as in the collection, curation and analysis of biological data.

As Julius Nyerere, the former president of Tanzania, put it 60 years ago in a speech now known as the Arusha Manifesto: “The conservation of wildlife and wild places calls for specialist knowledge, trained manpower and money, and we look to other nations to co-operate with us in this important task — the success or failure of which not only affects the continent of Africa but the rest of the world as well.”