African Wildlife Foundation (AWF)
Organisation O0002
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| Contact details | African Wildlife Foundation Nairobi Headquarters Britak Centre Mara Ragati Roads P.O. Box 48177, 00100 Nairobi Kenya Phone: +254 20 2710367 Fax: +254 20 2710372 Email: africanwildlife@awfke.org |
| Type of organisation | Conservation organisation |
| Organisation's interest | Conservation |
| Location | Kenya |
| Learning Group member? | Yes |
Description
The African Wildlife Foundation is an international conservation organisation that focuses solely on Africa. AWF has significantly increased scientific understanding of Africa’s extraordinary ecosystems through research, it has pioneered the use of community conservation and conservation enterprise to demonstrate that wildlife can be conserved while people’s well being is also improved. AWF has provided crucial assistance to national parks and reserves and promoted international cooperation to protect important sites and populations that stretch across national boundaries
The essential need to conserve Africa’s remaining vital ecosystems inspired AWF to establish the African Heartlands Program – a landscape level approach to conservation. Heartlands are large, cohesive conservation landscapes, which are biologically important and have the scope to maintain healthy populations of wild species and natural processes well into the future. They also form a sizeable economic unit in which tourism or other natural resource-based activities can contribute significantly to the livelihoods of people living in the area. A key focus of AWF’s activities is to provide enterprise services in and around the African Heartlands to assist communities in developing alternative and sustainable enterprises as a source of income while helping to conserve natural habitats.
Projects
1. Cross-cutting CBNRM learning project (Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania): AWF is working with the Ford Foundation, its grantees and AWF partners in the region to investigate learning from recent CBNRM initiatives in the region. AWF sees the PCLG as a very useful portal for gathering comparative information, reviewing case studies and sharing learning findings from this work.
2. Cross-cutting socio-economic impact measurement initiative (pan-African): AWF is updating the ways in which it measures the socio-economic impacts of its conservation work. AWF has been revising its own methodologies and comparing its methodologies with other conservation and development organisations. AWF is about to use this revision process to begin implementation of a two-year internal project to update socio-economic baselines and impact measurement in its ‘priority interventions’.
3. Cross-cutting program on conservation enterprise development (pan-African). One of AWF’s four main types of intervention strategy, conservation enterprise development, is specifically targeted at enabling communities to achieve their linked livelihood and sustainable conservation management goals. Currently working on 52 enterprises across the AWF Programme, the enterprise team supports tourism and other initiatives ensuring that communities are equitable partners.
Site Specific:
4. Congo (Democratic Republic of Congo): AWF is working to establish ecologically and economically viable protected areas, improve the management of forest concessions and plantations, foster profitable resource-based community enterprises and develop an appropriate monitoring framework to secure the biological integrity of this landscape.
5. Kazungula (Botswana, Namibia, Zambia, Zimbabwe):
a. Fishing Camps: AWF in collaboration with local partners assisted the Chezya Community in Zimbabwe to develop a sport fishing camp at a popular site in their village.
b. Santawani Lodge: Financial and technical assistance was provided to the Sankuyo community through their management trust to rebuild the 16 bed Santawani lodge.
6. Kilimanjaro (Kenya and Tanzania): AWF is assisting three group ranches in the Kilimanjaro Heartland to create a community beekeeping enterprise. This project will provide an important source of income to a community with an exceptionally high rate of unemployment.
7. Limpopo (Mozambique, South Africa and Zimbabwe): AWF has acted as an adviser and liaison between Imbali Safari Lodge and the local community to develop ways for the community to support the needs of the lodge. The community now provides a range of business services to the lodge.
8. Samburu (Kenya): AWF provided assistance to the local Namunyak community to become an equity shareholder in a permanent tented camp that had been built on land originally leased from them. At another community nearby, AWF has provided capital for a group to develop their own ‘star beds’ luxury camp along the banks of the Ewaso Ngiro. Both of these communities have set aside large areas of their land for conservation and tourism.
9. Maasai Steppe (Tanzania): AWF is working with communities to establish Wildlife Management Areas, particularly around key wildlife corridors.
10. Virunga (Democratic Republic of Congo, Rwanda and Uganda): AWF is part of the International Gorilla Conservation Project coalition. IGCP is working with forest adjacent communities to increase their stake in and benefits from gorilla tourism. Bwindi has been one of the primary study sites for the CARE led assessment of the socio-economic impact of protected areas.
11. Zambezi (Mozambique, Zambia and Zimbabwe): AWF is working with communities to establish Land Trusts and enable them to benefit from wildlife based tourism.
Geographic coverage
Congo
Kenya
Botswana
Namibia
Zambia
Zimbabwe
Mozambique
South Africa
Tanzania
Rwanda
People
Joanna Elliott
E-mail: joanna.elliott@ukonline.co.uk
Web URL
http://www.awf.org/
Related records below this one:
- Promoting Biodiversity Conservation with Social Equity (Initiative I0014)
- 04 - Measuring the impact of livelihood initiatives in the conservation context (Document D0156)
- 09 - Measuring Socio-Economic Impacts of the AWF Conservation Program (en) (Document D0155)
- International Gorilla Conservation Programme (IGCP), Uganda (Case study C0207)
- Selous Conservation Programme (SCP) (Case study C0088)
- Transfrontier Conservation Areas: Integrating Biodiversity and Poverty Alleviation in Southern Africa (Biblio B1531)
- Handbook for Assessing the Economic and Livelihood Impacts of Wildlife Enterprises (Biblio B1449)
- Institutional Sustainability and Community Conservation: A Case Study from Uganda (Biblio B0480)