African Wildlife Foundation

The African Wildlife Foundation (AWF) is an international conservation organization created with the intent of preserving Africa's wildlife, wild lands, and natural resources.

Since its inception in 1961, the organization has protected endangered species and land, promoted conservation enterprises, and trained African conservationists.

Early years
The African Wildlife Leadership Foundation (AWLF) was founded in 1961 by Russell E. Train, a wealthy judge, hunter, and member of the Washington Safari Club. Other founding members of the Safari Club were Nick Arundel, a former United States Marine Corps combat officer and journalist; Kermit Roosevelt Jr. of the Central Intelligence Agency; James S. Bugg, a businessman; and Maurice Stans, an accountant who would later serve as finance chairman of the Richard Nixon administration.

Train was worried that European park managers would be replaced by unqualified Africans in conservation work as African countries gained their independence. Twenty African countries became independent in 1960 and 1961. Train wrote,

"'In Tanganyika alone, the government recently ordered 100 percent Africanization of the game service by 1966! The replacement of European staff by untrained, unqualified men spells disaster for the game.'"

The first major grant of the AWLF was $47,000 to help found the College of African Wildlife Management at Mweka, Tanzania, in 1963. The college was organized by Bruce Kinloch, Chief Game Warden of Tanganyika, as a pioneer institution for the training of African wildlife managers. Funding for Mweka was also provided by the U.S. Agency for International Development and the Frankfurt Zoological Society, with facilities donated by the government of Tanganyika. By 2010, the college had trained over 4,500 wildlife managers from 28 African countries and 18 non-African countries.

In 1963, AWLF started a scholarship program to bring young Africans to American universities where they could study biology and wildlife management. Later that year, AWLF built a conservation education center at the entrance to Nairobi National Park. In 1967, the AWLF provided $50,000 to finance the construction of a research institute in Tanzania. In 1970, the AWF established a school for wildlife management in Garoua, Cameroon, giving instruction in French. During the 1970s and 1980s, the AWLF continued to finance students, and also assisted conservation projects, often giving supplies such as tents, vehicle spare parts, water pumps, and photographic equipment, rather than cash.

In 1969, the AWLF took the lead in a campaign supported by other conservation groups to protect rhinoceroses. In 1974, the foundation began a program to study cheetahs. In 1983, the AWF dropped "Leadership" from its name. Train was disappointed with the change, believing that the organization had lost sight of its original mandate. In his view, it had become just another conservation organization, giving funding to westerners to conduct research on animals. There is research such as Dian Fossey's work on gorillas and Cynthia Moss's work on elephants, which were both supported by the AWF.

In 1968, the annual budget was less than USD $250,000. In 1988, the year of the AWF's campaign launch against elephant poaching, the foundation had a staff of six and an annual budget of $2 million. When the AWF turned 30 in 1991, the board of trustees remained dominated by prominent and wealthy Americans, many of whom served on other non-profit boards.

Recent initiatives
The AWF have said their recent programs are modelled around three central objectives: empowering people, conserving wildlife, and protecting land. Empowering people involves conservation enterprises.

The AWF's primary goal is to protect land. Starting in 1998, land protection efforts focused on landscape-level conservation approaches.

Foundation finances include a reported income of US$19,333,998 in the fiscal year ended 30 June 2009. Of this, $8,582,555 came from public sector support, $5,815,839 from corporate and foundation support, $5,224,931 from gifts from individuals and $1,360,424 from legacy gifts. $17,395,456 was spent on programs, $1,524,764 on fund raising, and $1,262,056 in administration. Program funding broke down as $14,174,224 on conservation programs, $2,392,989 on public education and $828,243 on membership programs.

Priority landscapes
The AWF formerly referred to its protected landscapes as its "heartlands"; currently, the organization employs a "priority landscape" approach. These priority landscapes include:

Bili-Uele
The Bili-Uele Protected Area Complex is found in the remote north of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, along the border of the Central African Republic. The region consists of savanna mosaic north of the Uele River and lowland primary forest to the south. Both regions support the remaining undisturbed population of the eastern chimpanzee. An estimated 35,000–65,000 eastern chimpanzees are found in this complex. Few organizations are working there.

Congo
The Maringa-Lopori-Wamba Landscape in the Democratic Republic of the Congo is one of the least developed and most remote parts of the Congo Basin. The inhabitants are among the poorest in Africa. Most people live by slash-and-burn agriculture and rely on bushmeat protein. Cash crops include maize, cassava and groundnuts. The growing population risks a revival of logging.

Since 1973, a Japanese team has been researching the bonobo population near the village of Wamba in 1973. However, research was discontinued after political disorders started in 1991, followed by the civil war in 1997, resuming only in the mid-2000s. The IUCN Red List classifies bonobos as an endangered species, with conservative population estimates ranging from 29,500 to 50,000 individuals. The AWF has partnered with local and international groups to develop a sustainable land use plan for the MLW Landscape. The plan aims to ensure that the economic and cultural needs of the inhabitants are met while conserving the environment. The approach combines AWF's Landscape Conservation Process and the Central African Regional Program for the Environment (CARPE) Program Monitoring Plan. A variety of tools are used, including surveys, interviews with local people and satellite image interpretation.

Etosha-Skeleton Coast
The Etosha-Skeleton Coast landscape, in the northern part of Namibia, is home to Etosha National Park and its vast salt pan, woodland, and savanna ecosystems. The landscape is home to the black-faced impala and the oryx. To the west of the park lies the Skeleton Coast, where herds of elephants live. The African Wildlife Foundation is scaling up social venture capital investments through its subsidiary, African Wildlife Capital (AWC), which invests in the Grootberg Lodge in the Khoadi-Hoas community conservancy.

Faro
At the core of the Faro landscape in northern Cameroon is Faro National Park, located close to the Nigerian border. This park hosts the largest population of hippos in Cameroon. AWF is lending support to counter-poaching park rangers in Faro and building a contingent of community scouts on the park's borders to provide a buffer between outsiders and the park.

Great Fish River
The Great Fish River Nature Reserve is located in South Africa's Eastern Cape province. The 45,000-hectare reserve, which lies in the Great Fish River valley, is home to critically endangered black rhinos.

Kazungula
The floodplains of the Zambezi River are surrounded by a mosaic of miombo and mopane woodlands and grasslands that include important wildlife migration corridors. Victoria Falls, the largest in the world, are between Mosi-oa-Tunya National Park in Zambia and Victoria Falls National Park in Zimbabwe. The Falls and surrounding area are designated a World Heritage Site. However, the environment is threatened by the development of tourism and a lack of funding.

The AWF has established the 160000 acre Sekute Conservation Area in this region in partnership with the Sekute Chiefdom, holding two elephant corridors' helped wildlife authorities settle four new white rhinos in Mosi-oa-Tunya National Park in Zambia, joining the last surviving white rhino in the country, a bull. On 17 January 2011, it was reported that two of the females white rhinos had given birth to calves, which seemed healthy. The area is also home to endangered black rhinos. In 2011, a cluster of modern new buildings for the Lupani community school were opened in Kazungula, built by the AWF at a cost of US$250,000. The new school has six classrooms, offices and five teachers' houses with three bedrooms each.

Kilimanjaro
Disney released the movie African Cats in April 2011. The Disney Worldwide Conservation Fund gave AWF a portion of the proceeds from the first week's ticket sales for use in protecting the Amboseli Wildlife Corridor. Their "See 'African Cats,' Save the Savanna" program served both to promote the movie and to raise money for conservation.

Limpopo
The Limpopo Landscape includes areas of Mozambique, South Africa and Zimbabwe. It includes savannas, woodlands, rivers and floodplains. Fauna include sable antelope, rhinos, hippos, and many species of birds, insects and aquatic life. The AWF has started the Leopard Conservation Science Project in this landscape. The AWF is particularly involved in the Banhine National Park in Mozambique, which covers 7000 km2. Until recently, this park had little or no infrastructure or staff to ensure that the environment was protected. The AWF has built a conservation research center, which it is marketed internationally. Fees from researchers will pay for staff to run the center and manage the park.

The Great Limpopo Trans frontier Park (GLTP) is a 35000 km2 park that is being established to connect the Kruger National Park in South Africa, the Limpopo National Park in Mozambique, the Gonarezhou National Park in Zimbabwe, and other protected areas. It is almost the size of the Netherlands and more than three times larger than Yellowstone National Park. The GLTP is home to many of the species most popular with tourists, including lions, white and black rhinoceros, giraffes, elephants, hippopotamus and buffalos. The AWF says the mega park will result in "creating new jobs and fortifying a tourism base [that is] not yet meeting its full potential". The AWF is a major sponsor of the project that is setting up this park.

Maasai Steppe


The 35000 acre Manyara Ranch Conservancy is near to Lake Manyara in Tanzania. This is a conservation and tourism project supported by the African Wildlife Foundation, the Tanzania Land Conservation Trust and the Manyara Ranch Conservancy. Rarely seen, but a common resident on the Conservancy is the lesser kudu.

Mau Forest Complex
Within Kenya's Rift Valley, sits the Mau Forest Complex. It is the largest indigenous montane forest in East Africa and serves as a critical water catchment area for the country, providing a source of water for many of Kenya's wildlife and people. African Wildlife Foundation, together with the Kenya Forest Service, the Community Forest Association, and other stakeholders, is reforesting areas of the Mau Forest with indigenous trees.

Parc W
This 1823280 ha region is located around the point where Niger, Burkina Faso and Benin meet. It consists of three national protected parks that form a UNESCO World Heritage Site, the trans-national W National Park, as well as several adjacent reserves and buffer zones. The complex includes savanna woodlands, gallery forests and flooded plains where the Mekrou and Niver rivers meet. It is home to the largest population of elephants in the region and the only remaining West African giraffes. Mitochondrial and nuclear DNA research shows that this is a subspecies that diverged from the Rothschild's giraffe about 350,000 years ago.

In Parc W, AWF and other International NGOs such as the International Union for Conservation of Nature, World Wide Fund for Nature and Africa 70 play a central role in communication, education and organization of local communities and their leaders, and help collect socio-economic and technical data. AWF is helping fund tree nurseries in Niger and Burkino Faso for replanting to provide fodder for the giraffes. Conservation threats are human population growth and desertification. AWF partners in the region include the Association pour la Sauvegarde des Girafes du Niger, Centre National de Gestion des Réserves de Faune (CENAGREF), Benin and the Ministries of the Environment in Burkina Faso and Niger.

Ruaha
The Ruaha area will intersect with an agriculture corridor that the Tanzanian government wants to develop in southern Tanzania. The proposed corridor will overlap many different ecosystems. AWF is scaling up social venture capital investments through its subsidiary, African Wildlife Capital (AWC), which invests in socially and environmentally responsible agricultural and other businesses—such as the Rungwe Avocado Co.—that must comply with conservation covenants to secure and maintain investment.

Samburu


The Grevy's zebra and reticulated giraffe live in the Samburu Landscape among the acacia grasslands. The challenges faced in Samburu are forest/habitat degradation due to logging and farming and cattle-carnivore conflict.

AWF has addressed these challenges, including partnering with Starbucks Coffee Trading Co. to train coffee growers and working with Samburu warriors.

Virunga
The Virunga landscape is an area of volcanic highlands around the point where Uganda, Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo meet. Virunga is home to the last 700 mountain gorillas in the world. It includes the Mgahinga Gorilla National Park in Uganda, where AWF opened a visitor center in July 2006. The Virunga ecosystem shelters chimpanzees, golden monkeys, forest elephants, and many species of birds, reptiles and amphibians. The region is overpopulated and unstable.

The AWF helped Dian Fossey study Rwandan mountain gorillas in the 1960s. AWF President Robinson McIlvaine later said that "There would be no mountain gorillas in the Virungas today ... were it not for Dian Fossey's tireless efforts over many years". McIlvaine initiated the formation of a consortium to protect the threatened Rwandan mountain gorillas while he was president of the AWF between 1978 and 1982. More recently, the AWF coordinated fundraising and construction of a lodge overlooking the Bwindi Impenetrable Forest National Park.

According to Farley Mowat in his book Woman in the Mists, in the late 1970s, Fossey asked McIlvaine to temporarily serve as secretary-treasurer of the Digit Fund while he was AWF President. She had created the fund to finance patrols against poachers seeking to kill mountain gorillas. McIlvaine partnered with the International Primate Protection League, the Digit Fund, and his own AWF, asking for funds to be made out to the AWF. The Digit Fund received none of the money. When McIlvaine suggested to Fossey that the Digit Fund could be folded into AWF, Fossey declined, and McIlvaine resigned as secretary-treasurer of the fund.

The AWF is a co-sponsor of the International Gorilla Conservation Program (IGCP) in Virunga, the others being Fauna & Flora International (FFI) and the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF). Among other activities, the IGCP works with Virunga Artisans, which markets the handmade products of artisans who live near the Volcanoes, Mgahinga and Bwindi National Parks. A census of mountain gorillas in the Virunga Massif in March and April 2010 showed that there had been a 26.3% increase in the population over the past seven years.

Save Valley
During recent decades, cattle fences and livestock have been removed, with the resurgence of wildlife and a recovery of wild habitats.

The Save Valley Conservancy, in Zimbabwe's southern lowveld area, forms part of the Greater Limpopo Transfrontier Park. AWF supports Save Valley Conservancy's anti-poaching efforts and works with government partners.

Organization
The AWF's headquarters are located in Nairobi, Kenya, with regional offices in South Africa, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia and Washington, DC. The organization is tax-exempt under Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code. As of 2009, there were 36 members of the board and 132 paid staff. Funds are raised through direct mail, grant proposals, Internet appeals, planned giving, cause-related marketing, and membership appeals. The executive heads of the foundation have been:

The AWF is a member of International Conservation Caucus Foundation's Conservation Council. It is also a member of EarthShare, a national federation that supports American environmental and conservation charities.