International Anti-Poaching Foundation

Description

The organization now known as Akashinga was founded in 2009 as the International Anti-Poaching Foundation, a nonprofit registered in Australia.

It runs community-driven nature conservation programs across Africa, including in Zimbabwe, Mozambique and Botswana. It began with a militarized approach to anti-poaching work but shifted after 2015 toward training local women as park rangers. Its Akashinga programme, launched in the Lower Zambezi Valley in Zimbabwe, created the first nature reserve in the world managed and protected entirely by women.

Its work centers on protecting wildlife and wilderness while empowering women and local communities as conservation leaders. It says it now safeguards more than 13 million acres of wilderness and has supported or led more than 50 conservation initiatives over 17 years. It also trains rangers in skills such as patrolling, arrest procedures and crime-scene preservation, and has helped develop national ranger qualification standards.

Its efforts contribute to global conservation goals such as the UN Sustainable Development Goals and the 30x30 target to protect 30 percent of land and sea by 2030.