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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

Kazungula is a huge area around the meeting point of Zambia, Namibia, Botswana and Zimbabwe, centered on the Zambezi River. The landscape, one of the most important terrestrial and freshwater ecosystems in Africa, has an area of about 86,500 square kilometres (33,400 sq mi). The floodplains of the Zambezi River are surrounded by a mosaic of Miombo and Mopane woodlands and grasslands that include important wildlife migration corridors.

Threats to biodiversity in the landscape include encroachment of incompatible human settlements, commercial agriculture and cultivation of natural areas, poaching, unsustainable fishing practices and unsustainable wood harvesting for charcoal and construction. The 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 growing and haphazard development of tourism, and lack of funding to the park authorities.

The area to the south of the Zambezi River in Zimbabwe and Botswana is home to about 150,000 elephants, a quarter of Africa's entire population. Elephants are crowded in the south but there is viable habitat in communal areas of Zambia to the north. Despite the loss of much wildlife on community lands through lack of management and poaching, the habitat is generally intact but needs further protection. In areas close to large wildlife populations there are prospects for restoration and integration into national and regional tourism sectors.

The AWF has established the 160,000 acres (65,000 ha) Sekute Conservation Area in this region in partnership with the Sekute Chiefdom, holding two elephant corridors. AWF 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 female white rhinos of 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.

AWF is seeking to maintain the ecological integrity of the landscape, concentrating on three wildlife corridors: the Chobe-Zambezi-Kafue corridor, Mdumu-Mamili corridor and Mosi-oa-Tunya-Dambwa corridor. These are critical to wildlife movement in the region but are under severe threat from land conversion and accelerated development along the Zambezi River. Various strategies are being implemented to secure these corridors which include land-use planning, developing conservation enterprises with empowered communities, establishing community conservancies, and other innovative land protection strategies. AWF is also trying to mitigate threats to large carnivores and rhinos.

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

This landscape centers on the point where Niger, Burkina Faso and Benin meet. It consists of three national protected parks (portions of the W National Park in these three countries) and 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 large and diverse wildlife populations including the largest population of elephants in the region and the only remaining West African Giraffe. AWF is assisting with tree nurseries in Niger and Burkino Faso to help provide fodder for the genetically distinct 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.

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

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 AWF coordinated fundraising and construction of a lodge overlooking the Bwindi Impenetrable Forest National Park, home of about half the worlds population of mountain gorillas. The Virunga ecosystem is highly diverse, and also shelters chimpanzees, golden monkeys, forest elephants, and many species of birds, reptiles and amphibians. The region is overpopulated, intensely poor and politically unstable, placing severe threats on the environment.

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 hand-made 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, an encouraging sign that conservation efforts were succeeding.

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. ^ "Landscape-Scale Conservation in the Kazungula Heartland". USAID. Retrieved 2011-10-15.
10. ^ "Kazungula Heartland". AWF. Retrieved 2011-10-15.
11. "MOSI-OA-TUNYA / VICTORIA FALLS ZAMBIA & ZIMBABWE" (PDF). United Nations. {{cite web}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |1= (help)
12. "Exciting News – Two New Rhino Births in Kazungula". Africa Geographic. 17 Jan 2011. Retrieved 2011-10-15.
13. Sandra Lombe (05 Mar. 2011). "Kazungula's Lupani school undergoes transformation". Zambia Post. Retrieved 2011-10-15. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
14. "Making Conservation Our Business". Manyara Ranch Conservancy. Retrieved 2011-10-14.
15. ^ "Parc W Heartland". AWF. Retrieved 2011-10-15.
16. "Conserving Grevy's Zebra in the Samburu District". EarthWatch. Retrieved 2011-10-15.
17. "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)
18. ^ "Virunga Heartland". AWF. Retrieved 2011-10-15.
19. "Clouds Mountain Gorilla Lodge – Nkuringo, Bwindi Impenetrable Forest". Wildplaces Africa. Retrieved 2011-10-15.
20. "About Virunga Artisans". Virunga Artisans. Retrieved 2011-10-15.
21. Anna Behm Masozera (December 7, 2010). "Census confirms increase in population of the critically endangered Virunga mountain gorillas". Greater Virunga Transboundary Executive Secretariat. Retrieved 2011-10-15.

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