African Wildlife Foundation

Description

African Wildlife Foundation is an international conservation organization working to protect Africa’s wildlife, wild lands and natural resources.

It was founded in 1961, originally as the African Wildlife Leadership Foundation, and dropped the word Leadership from its name in 1983. It is headquartered in Nairobi, Kenya, with offices across Africa, in Cameroon, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ethiopia, Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda, and further offices in Belgium, Canada, Switzerland, the United Kingdom and the United States.

The organization works with governments, communities and businesses to make conservation a source of revenue and to ensure that African conservation is led by Africans. Its work spans wildlife protection, habitat and land protection, and community empowerment through conservation enterprises. It runs training programs for African conservation leaders, supports anti-poaching and wildlife-crime enforcement, and helped found schools such as the College of African Wildlife Management in Tanzania.

It manages conservation work across a set of priority landscapes spanning many African countries, focusing on species such as elephants, mountain gorillas, bonobos, rhinos and African wild dogs. It also runs education programs, including Classroom Africa schools built with communities, and impact-investment vehicles that channel finance into conservation-linked enterprises.