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The African Wildlife Foundation (AWF), founded in 1961 as the African Wildlife Leadership Foundation, is an international conservation organization that focuses on critically important landscapes in Africa.

Foundation

The AWF was founded in 1961 by Russell E. Train to aid Africans in developing capacity to manage their own wildlife resources. He was also a founding director of the World Wildlife Fund (WWF). Train was later to be the second Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), from September 1973 to January 1977.

The College of African Wildlife Management was established in 1963 by Bruce Kinloch as a pioneer institution for the training of African wildlife managers. Initial funding for Mweka was provided by the African Wildlife Leadership Foundation (now known as the African Wildlife Foundation), the U.S. Agency for International Development, and the Frankfurt Zoological Society, with facilities donated by the government of Tanganyika. Since this time, the College has been a leader in providing quality wildlife management training in Africa, and has trained over 3,000 wildlife managers from 28 African countries and 18 non-African countries.

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

Heartlands

The AWF names the landscapes that it supports "heartlands". These are large areas of exceptional wildlife and natural value that extend across state, private and community lands with the potential to conserve viable populations of wildlife, key habitats and ecological systems well into the future. Within each Heartland, the AWF defines the functioning landscape, establishes priority conservation targets and determines critical threats to these targets. AWF then develops strategies to increase the area under improved management, increase participation and capacity of landowners and improve the management of key conservation targets.

Heartlands include:

Congo

The foundation has led efforts by local and international groups to develop a sustainable land use plan for the Maringa-Lopori-Wamba Landscape in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. 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 Heartland 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.

Kazungula

Kilamanjaro

The Kilimanjaro Heartland is a 230,000 hectares (890 sq mi) landscape straddling the Kenya—Tanzania border. It includes the semi-arid savanna of the greater Amboseli ecosystem which lies just north and west of Africa’s highest peak and most recognized symbol, Mount Kilimanjaro. The Heartland’s diverse terrain includes the traditional pastureland of the Maasai people, Amboseli National Park, Tanzania’s Kilimanjaro and Arusha National Parks, and Lake Natron and the low-lying savannas of Longido.

The Heartlands team is focused on transboundary challenges such as the conservation of elephants, wildlife migration routes and dispersal areas, and the maintanence of landscape scale hydrological systems. This collaborative effort is helping the people and governments of Kenya and Tanzania to work together on shared conservation challenges. Transboundary collaboration has led to joint patrols to monitor wildlife, and reduced wildlife poaching across the border. AWF and local and national governments are developing a management plan for the Heartland that includes a mixture of reserves, community land, and private holdings. The goal is to create a large enough area for the survival of lions, elephants, and other endangered wildlife.

Limpopo

Maasai Steppe

The Maasai Steppe Heartland encompasses 3.5 million hectares of east African woodland savannah in northern Tanzania. The area includes Tarangire and Lake Manyara National Parks, that lie within extensive rangelands, much of which are the traditional grazing lands of the Maasai pastoralists, interspersed with smaller blocks of private and government-owned lands. The primary challenge in this biologically rich, yet increasingly fragmented landscape is protecting the tracts of land, or "corridors" that connect and sustain key conservation areas.

Lake Manyara and Tarangire National Park are 40 kilometres (25 mi). The corridor that connects them is critical for wildlife migration and dispersal, particularly elephants. About ten years ago, this migration route began to disappear due to habitat fragmentation and degradation. In response, AWF is working to improve the conservation management of the Manyara Ranch, an important land unit of the larger Tarangire-Manyara Ecosystem. Recently, a detailed corridor analysis was completed to identify elephant movements to and from Manyara Ranch, and to establish corridors between national parks and other areas of the landscape. Training and operational support for community game scouts has also been given on threat data collection, and detailed land-use surveys have been conducted with communities that border Manyara Ranch.

The 35,000 acres (14,000 ha) Manyara Ranch Conservancy is near to Lake Manyara in Tanzania. This is a pioneering conservation and tourism project supported by the African Wildlife Foundation, the Tanzania Land Conservation Trust and the Manyara Ranch Conservancy. While not a park, the conservancy is frequented by resident and migrating wildlife including elephant, lion, buffalo, leopard and the more common plains game. Rarely seen in the parks but a common resident on the Conservancy is the Lesser Kudu.

Parc W

Samburu

The Samburu Heartland is a semi-arid plateau of extraordinary natural value in Kenya. It is located north of the equator and east of the Great Rift Valley. It includes parts of Mount Kenya and the Aberdare National Parks and three National Reserves (Samburu, Buffalo Springs and Shaba). Land use in the area is a mix of private farms, traditional pastoralism, community lands, and public game reserves, yet it is one of few places in the country where wildlife populations are increasing. The heartland supports wild dogs, elephant, rhino, cheetah, buffalo and lion, and is particularly important as a critical conservation site for the increasingly endangered northern savanna specialist species including the reticulated giraffe, Somali ostrich, oryx, gerenuk and the highly endangered Grevy’s zebra.

The AWF is working to address the root causes of incompatible land use, such as land tenure, perceptions of wildlife, competition for water, and economic incentives or disincentives for saving habitat. Ecological assessments have been completed in targeted areas of the Heartland, including an aerial wildlife survey, GIS mapping of conservation areas and inventory of critical water points on group ranches surrounding Samburu National Reserve. The EarthWatch Institute operates a program where volunteers are given basic accommodations at their Center for Drylands Research in Wamba. The volunteers count and photograph endangered Grevy's zebras, of which there are about 2,000 in the region, and record GIS locations, activities and other observations of wildlife, livestock and people. The data is used to prepare GIS maps that show the distribution of zebras in relation to predators, humans, and habitat, which are shared with the AWF and the local communities.

A highly critical film by Oliver Steeds named "Conservation’s Dirty Secrets" was aired on June 20 on the United Kingdom's Channel 4. It portrays the alleged role of the AWF in brutal evictions of Samburu pastoralists in Kenya. While Kenyan police tried to arrest his Samburu guides, Steeds interviewed evicted Samburu elders and filmed their burning dwellings.

Virunga

Zambesi

The Zambezi Heartland, supported by USAID under the first phase of Global Conservation Program from 1999 to 2003, is a cross-border management and cooperation initiative in Zambia, Zimbabwe, and Mozambique. It is also an example of mixed land use (communal areas, private farms, and public protected areas) with large animals, such as elephant and buffalo, sharing the same land as the herders and farmers. The area is critical for wildlife as it provides access to the Zambezi River.

References

1. "About AWF". AWF. Retrieved 2011-10-14.
2. "Russell E. Train Timeline". World Wildlife Fund. Retrieved 2011-10-14.
3. "Russell E. Train | EPA History | US EPA". Epa.gov. 2006-06-28. Retrieved 2010-08-21.
4. "Conservation Council". ICCF. Retrieved 2011-10-14.
5. "WHO WE SUPPORT". EarthShare. Retrieved 2011-10-14.
6. ^ "Global Conservation Program Partner: African Wildlife Foundation (AWF)". USAID. Retrieved 2011-10-15.
7. "THE AFRICAN HEARTLANDS". African Wildlife Foundation. Retrieved 2011-10-14.
8. Dupain, Jef; Nackoney, Janet; Kibambe, Jean-Paul; Bokelo, Didier; Williams, David (2008). "Maringa-Lopori-Wamba Landscape" (PDF). L'Observatoire des Forêts d'Afrique Centrale. p. 329. Retrieved 2011-1014. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help)
9. "Making Conservation Our Business". Manyara Ranch Conservancy. Retrieved 2011-10-14.
10. "Conserving Grevy's Zebra in the Samburu District". EarthWatch. Retrieved 2011-10-15.
11. "Campaign Update – Kenya: Documentary Blasts Conservation Organizations for Abusing Indigenous Peoples". Cultural Survival. 06/22/2011. Retrieved 2011-10-15. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)

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