As a Zambian born and raised person who has lived, worked, and traveled in at least 5 different African nations, including Mozambique, Zimbabwe, and Rwanda, I keep coming back to a few central themes that apply to most of Africa, all of which impact the environment, all of which can ultimately impact the rest of the world.
These themes are:
Cycles
Balance
The interaction of other elements.

When examining Africa one cannot address the topic of Environment without also addressing the inter-related elements of Politics, Economics, Health, Education, Socialization, Foreign aid, and Power.

The 3 countries referenced can be regarded as an example of virtually any nation in Africa and so one can consider Africa as being represented by these nations.

Cycles.
Let's first consider the cycles that most African nations go through. They usually last between 10 and 20 years, where each nation goes from low to high and back again without improving their overall living conditions, unless they have first found a way to break the cycle. And still they are always in danger of relapse, which is not dissimilar to developed countries, where economies move in cycles.

Africa has some excellent examples of nations that have broken the poverty cycle and spread the improvements around their country, including protecting their environment. Two recent examples are Mauritius and Angola, which have both raised their productivity per person to significant levels, one through oil and the other through sugar milling and textiles. Admittedly, Africa also has some examples of where discoveries of a natural resources have polarized their country. They did not break the cycle.
Mauritius and Angola have taken their best element and capitalized on it to improve their environment. Zimbabwe, Mozambique and Rwanda, no different to Angola, can do the same. In truth, Zim went a long way immediately after their war to re-populating the game parks and implementing successful bush reclamation projects. It shows they have the capability.

Better yet they can learn from an even more immediate neighbor, Botswana, once the highest on the UN's red list of crisis countries. Botswana had very limited natural resources to speak of but over a 20 year cycle concentrated on developing something they did not have - Education. Improved education enabled the people to manage what resources they had (diamonds) and develop other resources through strong fiscal discipline. The result was

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