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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.

Early years

The African Wildlife Leadership Foundation (AWLF) was founded in 1961 by Russell E. Train, a wealthy judge and hunter. Nick Arundel, a former United States Marine Corps combat officer and journalist, and Kermit Roosevelt, Jr. were other founding members. Train was worried that trained Europeans 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! ... Replacement of European staff by intrained, unqualified men spells disaster for the game". He felt that it was urgent to train Africans to become wildlife professionals.

The first major grant of the AWLF was $47,000 to help found the College of African Wildlife Management at Mweka, Tanzania. 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 1983 the AWF dropped "Leadership" from its name. Train was disappointed with the change, considering that the organization had lost sight of its original mandate. Instead, it had become just another conservation organization, giving funding to westerners to conduct research on animals. However, this research, such as Dian Fossey's work on gorillas and Cynthia Moss's work on elephants was clearly useful.

The foundation had difficulty raising money. In 1988, the year in which the AWF launched a campaign against elephant poaching, the foundation had a staff of six and an annual budget of just $2 million. When the AWF turned 30 in 1991, the board of trustees continued to be dominated by prominent and wealthy Americans, many of whom served on other non-profit boards.

Recent thrusts

In more recent years the AWF has modelled its program around three objectives: empowering people, conserving wildlife and protecting land. Empowering people involves conservation enterprises that provide benefits and incentives to local communities, sponsoring training of African conservationists and working with government to define conservation policy. Conserving wildlife involves research into species and into how these species interact with people, the basis for defining programs from which both humans and animals can benefit.

The main thrust, however, is on protecting land, ensuring that large open landscapes are available for wildlife. This involves supporting existing protected areas, creating private land trusts and working with local community groups on protecting special sites. Starting in 1998, land protection efforts have focused on nine "heartlands" with unique ecologies, most of which span international boundaries.

The foundation had 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.

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 Maringa-Lopori-Wamba Landscape in the Democratic Republic of the Congo one of the least developed and most remote parts of the Congo Basin. The inhabitants are among the poorest in Africa, depending on natural resources to meet their basic needs. Most of the people live by slash-and-burn agriculture, and rely on bushmeat such as porcupine, sitatunga, and forest hog for protein. Cash crops include maize, cassave and groundnuts. The growing population is placing more stress on the environment, and there is risk of a revival of logging that could harm the ability of the land to sustain the people and could jeopardize both biodiversity.

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 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 led efforts by 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 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 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 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.

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 Heartland includes areas of Mozambique, South Africa and Zimbabwe. It includes savanna, woodland, rivers and floodplains. Fauna include sable antelope, rhinos, hippos, and many species of birds, insects and aquatic life. The AWF is particularly involved in the Banhine National Park in Mozambique, covering 7,000 square kilometres (2,700 sq mi). Until recently this park had little infrastructure or facilities, management or enforcement. The AWF has built a conservation research center, which it is marketing to the international scientific community. Fees paid by researchers will be used to staff the center and manage the park. The AWF has launched the Leopard Conservation Science Project in the Limpopo Heartland.

The Great Limpopo Transfrontier Park will be a 35,000 square kilometres (14,000 sq mi) park connecting the Kruger National Park in South Africa,the Limpopo National Park in Mozambique and the Gonarezhou National Park in Zimbabwe. It is an integral part of the Maputo Development Corridor. The megapark will be more than three times the size of Yellowstone National Park in the United States and almost as big as the Netherlands. The AWF has pointed out that it is home to many of the species most popular with tourists, including lion, white rhinoceros, black rhinoceros, giraffe, elephant, hippopotamus and buffalo, saying it will result it "creating new jobs and fortifying a tourism base not yet meeting its full potential". The AWF is a major donor to creation of this park.

Maasai Steppe

The Maasai Steppe Heartland encompasses 3,500,000 hectares (8,600,000 acres) 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) apart. 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, and covers 1,823,280 hectares (7,039.7 sq mi). 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. This is a distinct and genetically healthy subspecies that diverged from the Rothschild's giraffe about 350,000 years ago, based on mitochondrial and nuclear DNA research.

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 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 the British journalist 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 forcible displacement of Kenyan Samburu pastoralists. Steeds interviewed evicted Samburu elders while the film showed their homes being burned down and Kenyan police trying to arrest his Samburu guides.

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 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 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 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, home of about half the worlds population of mountain gorillas.

According the 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 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.

Organization

The African Wildlife Foundation headquarters are in Washington, DC, and the AWF has offices in Kenya, South Africa, Tanzania, Uganda, and Zambia. 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 Presidents of the society have been:

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.

References

1. About AWF.
2. Russell E. Train.
3. Virginia Assembly...
4. ^ Train 2003, p. 44.
5. ^ Bonner 1993, pp. 57ff.
6. Eyeball to eyeball...
7. Last Stand...
8. Empowering People.
9. Conserving Wildlife.
10. Protecting Land.
11. ^ BBB Wise Giving...
12. ^ Global Conservation Program...
13. The African Heartlands.
14. ^ Dupain et al. 2008, p. 329.
15. Dupain et al. 2008, p. 331.
16. Dupain et al. 2008, p. 332.
17. Kimura 2009, pp. 209–225.
18. Pan paniscus: IUCN.
19. Dupain et al. 2008.
20. ^ Kazungula USAID.
21. ^ Kazungula Heartland.
22. Mosi-Oa-Tunya.
23. Exciting News...
24. Lombe 2011.
25. Disney's African Cats.
26. Limpopo Heartland.
27. Strengthening Banhine.
28. Revealing the Leopard.
29. Great Limpopo Transfrontier.
30. Seven Elephants...
31. Making Conservation Our Business.
32. ^ Parc W Heartland.
33. World's rarest giraffe.
34. Strategie Nationale.
35. Conserving Grevy's Zebra.
36. Campaign Update – Kenya.
37. Virunga Heartland.
38. Celebrating AWF's 40th.
39. Robinson McIlvaine.
40. Clouds Mountain Gorilla Lodge.
41. Mowat 1987, pp. 202–203.
42. About Virunga Artisans.
43. Masozera 2010.
44. AWF's History.
45. Conservation Council.
46. Who We Support.

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 This article incorporates public domain material from websites or documents of the United States Agency for International Development.

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