Environmental concerns must beintegrated into the development process, but Africancountries still face many challenges as they work to achievedevelopment that is economically, socially, andenvironmentally sustainable. Many countries have alreadylaunched National Environmental Action Plans (NEAPs) andNational Conservation Strategies; however, in preparing andimplementing them, economics was used sparingly becausetechniques and skills available to do so were in shortsupply. This paper was written to fill this gap, to show howenvironmental economics could and should be used to improvethe quality of decision making in the NEAP process. Thepaper is written for the practitioner in the field who needsto make immediate decisions and cannot wait for more data.After presenting the theory of environmental economics, thetext goes on to show its practical application in Africa.