The African Wildlife Foundation (AWF) is an international conservation organization created with the intent of preserving Africa's wildlife, wild lands, and natural resources.[1] Founded in 1961, the organization helped establish conservation programs at the College of African Wildlife Management, Mweka in Tanzania, and the Ecole de Faune de Garoua in Cameroon.[2] The Foundation works with governments and businesses to develop conservation efforts as a source of revenue.[2]
Train was worried that European park managers would be replaced by unqualified Africans in conservation works as African countries gained their independence. Twenty African countries became independent in 1960 and 1961. Train wrote, [8]
"In Tanganyika alone, the government recently ordered Hundred percent (100%) Africanization of the game service by 1966! The replacement of European staff by untrained, unqualified men spells disaster for the game."
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.[12]
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.[12] 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.[13]
In 1968, the annual budget was less than US$250,000.[12] 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.[14]
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.[15][16]
The AWF's primary goal is to protect land. Starting in 1998, land protection efforts focused on landscape-level conservation approaches.[17]
Foundation finances include a reported income of US$19,333,998 in the 2009 fiscal year. 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.[18]
Priority landscapes
The AWF formerly referred to its protected landscapes as its "heartlands"; currently, the organization employs a "priority landscape" approach.[19] These priority landscapes include:[20]
Countries
Priority landscape
Start
Notes
Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC)
Congo
2003
Moist tropical forest between the Lopori and Maringa Rivers. Home of the endangered bonobo
Botswana, Zambia, and Zimbabwe
Kazungula
2001
Woodland-grassland mosaic with important wildlife migration corridors around the Zambezi River
Volcanic highland mountains, home of the last 700 mountain gorillas in the world
Mozambique, Zambia and Zimbabwe
Zambezi
2000
Zambezi River, tributaries, acacia floodplain and interconnecting wetlands
Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC)
Bili Uele
2013
Savanna mosaic north of the Uele River and lowland primary forest to the south. Home of the chimpanzee and forest elephant
Namibia
Etosha-Skeleton Coast
2013
Vast salt pan, woodland, and savanna ecosystems
South Africa
Great Fish River
2013
A 45,000-hectare reserve in the Great Fish River valley, home to increasingly vulnerable population of critically endangered black rhino
Zimbabwe
Save Valley
Save Valley Conservancy, home to endangered rhinos
Cameroon
Faro
2012
In addition to hosting the largest population of hippos in Cameroon, Faro National Park is home to elephants, black rhinos, cheetahs, hyenas, and other wildlife
Kenya
Mau Forest
2011
The Mau Forest Complex sits within Kenya's Rift Valley and is the largest indigenous montane forest in East Africa
Tanzania
Ruaha
2012
The Ruaha area will intersect with an agriculture corridor that the Tanzanian government wants to develop in southern Tanzania
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.
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.[21] Most people live by slash-and-burn agriculture and rely on bushmeat protein. Cash crops include maize, cassava and groundnuts.[22] The growing population risks a revival of logging.[21]
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.[23] 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.[24]
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.
Aerial photo of Kazungula (centre right) on the Zambezi RiverThe two white rhinos at Mosi-oa-Tunya National Park in May 2005
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. [25]
The AWF has established the 160,000 acres (65,000ha) 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.[26] 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.[27]
Kilimanjaro
Elephants grazing in the Amboseli swamps, north of 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.[28]
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. [29] The AWF is particularly involved in the Banhine National Park in Mozambique, which covers 7,000 square kilometres (2,700sqmi). 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.[30]
The Great Limpopo Trans frontier Park (GLTP) is a 35,000 square kilometres (14,000sqmi) 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". [31] The AWF is a major sponsor of the project that is setting up this park.[32]
Maasai Steppe
Tarangire National Park in Tanzania, East Africa
The 35,000 acres (14,000ha) 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.[33]
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.[34] 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.
This 1,823,280 hectares (7,039.7sqmi) region is located around the point where Niger, Burkina Faso and Benin meet. It consists of three national protected parks that form a UNESCOWorld 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.[35] Mitochondrial and nuclear DNA research shows that this is a subspecies that diverged from the Rothschild's giraffe about 350,000 years ago.[36]
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.
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.
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.[38]
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".[39] 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.[40] More recently, the AWF coordinated fundraising and construction of a lodge overlooking the Bwindi Impenetrable Forest National Park.[41]
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.[42]
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.[43] 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.[44]
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:[45][5]
Maasai Mara, also sometimes spelled Masai Mara and locally known simply as The Mara, is a large national game reserve in Narok, Kenya, contiguous with the Serengeti National Park in Tanzania. It is named in honour of the Maasai people, the ancestral inhabitants of the area, who migrated to the area from the Nile Basin. Their description of the area when looked at from afar: "Mara" means "spotted" in the local Maasai language, because of the short bushy trees which dot the landscape.
Dian Fossey was an American primatologist and conservationist known for undertaking an extensive study of mountain gorilla groups from 1966 until her murder in 1985. She studied them daily in the mountain forests of Rwanda, initially encouraged to work there by paleoanthropologist Louis Leakey. Gorillas in the Mist, a book published two years before her death, is Fossey's account of her scientific study of the gorillas at Karisoke Research Center and prior career. It was adapted into a 1988 film of the same name.
Woodland Park Zoo is a wildlife conservation organization and zoological garden located in the Phinney Ridge neighborhood of Seattle, Washington, United States. The zoo is the recipient of over 65 awards across multiple categories. The zoo has around 900 animals from 250 species and the zoo has over 1 million visitors a year.
The mountain gorilla is one of the two subspecies of the eastern gorilla. It is listed as endangered by the IUCN as of 2018.
Volcanoes National Park is a national park in northwestern Rwanda. It covers 160 km2 (62 sq mi) of rainforest and encompasses five of the eight volcanoes in the Virunga Mountains, namely Karisimbi, Bisoke, Muhabura, Gahinga and Sabyinyo. It borders Virunga National Park in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Mgahinga Gorilla National Park in Uganda. It is home to the mountain gorilla and the golden monkey, and was the base for the primatologist Dian Fossey.
Virunga National Park is a national park in the Albertine Rift Valley in the eastern part of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. It was created in 1925. In elevation, it ranges from 680 m (2,230 ft) in the Semliki River valley to 5,109 m (16,762 ft) in the Rwenzori Mountains. From north to south it extends approximately 300 km (190 mi), largely along the international borders with Uganda and Rwanda in the east. It covers an area of 8,090 km2 (3,120 sq mi).
Port Lympne Hotel & Reserve near the town of Hythe in Kent, England is set in 600 acres (2.4 km2) and incorporates the historic Port Lympne Mansion, and landscaped gardens designed by architect Sir Herbert Baker, for Sir Philip Sassoon.
Mosi-oa-Tunya National Park is a UNESCO World Heritage Site that is home to one-half of the Mosi-oa-Tunya—"The Smoke that Thunders", known worldwide as Victoria Falls—on the Zambezi River. The river forms the border between Zambia and Zimbabwe, so the falls are shared by the two countries, and the park is twin to the Victoria Falls National Park on the Zimbabwean side.
Garamba National Park is a national park in the north-eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo covering nearly 5,200 km2 (2,000 sq mi). It is among Africa's oldest parks and was designated a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 1980 for its protection of critical habitat for northern white rhinoceroses, African elephants, hippopotamuses, and giraffes. Garamba National Park has been managed by African Parks in partnership with the Institut Congolais pour la Conservation de la Nature since 2005.
The Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund International is a charity for the protection of endangered mountain gorillas. The Digit Fund was created by Dr. Dian Fossey in 1978 for the sole purpose of financing her anti-poaching patrols and preventing further poaching of the mountain gorillas. Fossey studied at her Karisoke Research Center in the Virunga Volcanoes of Rwanda. The non-profit fund was named in memory of Fossey's favourite gorilla, Digit, who was decapitated by poachers for the offer of US$20 by a Hutu merchant who specialized in selling gorilla heads as trophies and gorilla hands as ashtrays to tourists.
The Albertine Rift montane forests is a tropical moist broadleaf forest ecoregion in east-central Africa. The ecoregion covers the mountains of the northern Albertine Rift, and is home to distinct Afromontane forests with high biodiversity.
Tourism in Rwanda is the largest source of foreign exchange earnings in Rwanda. It was projected to grow at a rate of 25% every year from 2013–2018. The sector is the biggest contributor to the national export strategy. Total revenue generated from the sector in 2014 alone was USD 305 million. Rwanda’s tours have attracted visitors around the world to come and take a glimpse at this incredible destination. There are tours which are conducted by local companies and then those done by tourists them selves.
The wildlife of the Democratic Republic of the Congo includes its flora and fauna, comprising a large biodiversity in rainforests, seasonally flooded forests and grasslands.
Eugène Rutagarama is an environmentalist from Rwanda. He was awarded the "Goldman Environmental Prize" in 2001, for his efforts on saving the population of mountain gorillas in the Volcanoes National Park at Virungas mountains, during the war and recent conflicts in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
The wildlife of the Central African Republic is in the vast natural habitat in the Central African Republic (CAR) located between the Congo Basin's rain forests and large savannas, where the human density was smaller than 0.5 per km2 prior to 1850. The forest area of 22.755 million, considered one of the richest storehouses of wildlife spread over national parks, hunting reserves and community hunting areas, experienced an alarming loss of wildlife because of greed for ivory and bushmeat exploitation by hunters – mostly Arab slavers from across the borders of the Central African Republic with Chad and Sudan.
Robinson McIlvaine was an American career diplomat who was President of the African Wildlife Foundation from 1978 to 1982.
The International Gorilla Conservation Programme was formed in 1991 to ensure that the critically endangered mountain gorillas are conserved in their habitat in the mountain forests of the Virunga Massif in Rwanda, Uganda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
The national parks of Rwanda are protected ecosystems and wildlife reserves located within the borders of Rwanda in east central Africa. In 2020, these protected natural zones include the Volcanoes National Park, Akagera National Park and Nyungwe Forest. Maintenance of the national park system, as well as tourism infrastructure and promotion of the parks, is managed by the Rwanda Development Board (RDB) with assistance from government ministries.
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