When it comes down to a competition for Africa’s natural resources between people and wildlife, people will win. Dams, roads, and railways will be built. Cities will expand. Extractive industries will continue to mine and drill. The challenge for Africa is recognizing our responsibility to steward our rich natural heritage even as we embrace growth.

When people aren’t at the center of conservation solutions, protecting wildlife and their habitats becomes irrelevant, or worse, a source of conflict. Conservation competes with growth. People become alienated from the values of coexistence with nature. This is deeply ironic given that Africa’s cultures and traditions—our very identities—are grounded in our relationship with the natural world.

How do we reconcile this? By partnering with leaders and communities across Africa to define a new vision of conservation. One that ties conservation to progress for people.
 
AWF’s work is not just about conserving nature—it is about transforming lives and futures. We help governments, businesses, and communities balance the needs of people and the needs of wildlife. You will see examples of what that looks like in the “Scaling Action” sections of this report. There, we share stories of how we are working to link conservation to people’s aspirations and collective dreams of a better future.

That can be as complex as designing a regional green growth strategy for the Rwandan government or as hands-on as helping a local entrepreneur in Zimbabwe develop an effective marketing plan for his broom-making business. The situations are diverse, but they share a common denominator. In everything we do, we emphasize creating opportunity for people as part of building a future for Africa where people and wildlife thrive.

In my job, I have the privilege of representing AWF across the world. As I have traveled across the continent this year, two things have become very clear.

The first is that when conservation is tied to sustainable development, Africans understand its value. We understand the need to prioritize coexistence, not competition, with wildlife.

The second is that African leadership—at all levels—plays a critical role in shaping what coexistence looks like. This is because ultimately, it is Africa’s laws and policies, our local councils and national governments, our businesses and investors, and our voters and consumers who must choose how we live with wildlife. This is what we seek to influence and shape.

I am extraordinarily proud of what AWF was able to achieve this year and grateful to all of you who are on the journey with us. I invite you to take a few minutes to explore this report and learn more about how we are realizing our vision of an Africa where sustainable development includes thriving wildlife and wild lands as a cultural and economic asset for Africa’s—and the world’s—future generations.

Asante sana,

Kaddu Sebunya
AWF Chief Executive Officer

In the 14 landscapes where AWF has field programs, less than half the land was under protected and conserved status in 2024.

Working inside parks and other conservation areas is important, but it is not enough. Wildlife and people depend on healthy ecosystems that cross human boundaries. For this reason, our work focuses as much on what happens outside official protected and conserved areas as what happens within.

AWF drives transformative change in Africa through strategies that link conservation to sustainable economic development.

We emphasize African leadership—and responsibility—in making choices that protect our natural heritage. And we recognize the importance of partnership with a global community that shares our goal of building a future where people and wildlife thrive.

Our approach is grounded in the belief that when people value nature, it becomes part of how they assess opportunity and how they envision growth. We engage people across society to understand the contributions nature and wildlife make to Africans’ lives and the importance Africa’s ecosystems hold for Africa and the world.

Our work is grounded in a collaborative and inclusive process designed to empower communities and other stakeholders to make informed choices on land use and nature-based economic growth. Through this process, we develop comprehensive conservation and development plans to guide decision-making.

These plans map wildlife corridors and buffer zones between protected areas and private or community land, as well as areas best suited for infrastructure, livelihood development, and agriculture. This helps everyone—local communities, government planners, businesses, and wildlife authorities—make long-term decisions that allow people to prosper while conserving the ecological integrity of the landscape.

Wildlife doesn’t recognize human boundaries, and neither does nature. Parks and other protected areas play important roles as anchors of conservation. But by themselves they can only conserve some habitats, not full ecosystems, which extend past protected area borders.

We call the mosaic of lands—public, private, and community-owned—that together make up larger ecosystems “conservation landscapes.” Wildlife corridors and dispersal areas across these landscapes link protected areas and are vital to conserving species like elephants, lions, and rhinos.

Currently, we are monitoring 45 populations of priority wildlife species across 13 landscapes, analyzing field and other data to determine threats facing each population. Populations were chosen because their viability provides good indications of overall ecosystem health and wildlife security.

THE POWER OF NETWORKS & PARTNERSHIPS

We are catalyzers and conveners. We use this power to advise and mobilize decision-makers at all levels to make conservation a key part of Africa's growth strategies. This includes connecting and empowering networks of youth, civil society, protected area directors, and other African institutions to drive change.

As trusted partners, we ensure these voices are heard from local to national and continental levels, bringing conservation to the table with everyone from community stakeholders to heads of state across Africa and around the world.

We also build and expand partnerships to bring diverse perspectives to decision-making tables. Achievements this year include:

Outside Africa, as part of our work with the United States government, we brought African-led conservation approaches and perspectives to the design process for a new funding vehicle for conservation, the US Foundation for International Conservation. We are expanding our strategic partnership with the European Union for delivering NaturAfrica programming in landscapes across the continent. And, at the global level, we continue our support of inclusive and unified African representation at negotiations such as the Biodiversity COP and the Climate COP.

In Zimbabwe’s Muzarabani District, located 290 kilometers northeast of the capital of Harare, AWF-supported enterprise programs have empowered women and young people like 29-year-old Philmon Mativenga.

In November 2023, Mativenga was one of 120 people who participated in a training to develop and improve small businesses based on non-timber forest products. He makes brooms utilizing native ilala palms, which he sells at Harare’s biggest market, Mbare.

When Ann Wambui applied to be an AWF-Wall Leadership & Management Fellow, she was a wildlife biologist at Mugie Wildlife Conservancy in Kenya. Responsible for overseeing the implementation of field conservation technology tools, Wambui trained more than 80 rangers, most of whom were men.

“It was a challenge because in our patriarchal society women are not seen as leaders,” she explains. “But my experience in AWF’s fellowship program helped me build my inner self-confidence and to see challenges as opportunities. I learned my role as a leader was to empower those around me.”

Named Fellow of the Year in February 2024, Wambui is now a conservation officer at the Loisaba Conservancy in Kenya, managing a team of 30 on invasive species eradication.

The AWF-Wall Youth Leadership program has two tracks, one focusing on leadership and management training for young professionals and a second focusing on policymaking. Both are supported by the Wall Family Foundation. We also continue a tradition of supporting postgraduate research through the Charlotte Fellows program.

Other examples of empowering young leaders include the Second African Youth Summit on Biodiversity in September 2023, which we co-convened in Morocco with the Africa chapter of the Global Youth Biodiversity Network. There, we supported African youth in developing concrete projects and plans to contribute to meeting global biodiversity goals across different regions of Africa.

People—young and old—are influenced by the media they consume. That is why we are increasing coverage of conservation across African social and traditional media channels. Our filmmaking program mentors young African filmmakers to develop short conservation films. Currently, we support nine filmmaking projects exploring topics such as the coexistence of elephants and villagers around Kenya’s Lake Jipe and community-led landscape restoration efforts in Tanzania’s Kilombero Valley. We also invest in conservation journalism training for journalists based across Africa, this year working with reporters from Botswana, Kenya, Tanzania, Rwanda, and Uganda. 

Most of our strategies are aimed at youth between the ages of 15 and 35—a major demographic in Africa, making up roughly one-third of the population. However, we also continue long-standing work to inspire the next generation of conservation leaders through conservation outreach programs in primary schools and wildlife clubs.

Dodo Moke, AWF Senior Environmental and Social Safeguards Officer, travels over 15,000 kilometers each year to rural communities like those in the remote Bili-Uélé landscape in the northern part of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). The trip by motorbike can take five days, traveling up to 18 hours a day. The route is fraught with security checkpoints, near-impassible dirt roads, river crossings by dugout canoe, and unpredictable weather conditions. The nights are usually spent on the ground; he gave up his tent long ago.

The trials Moke faces in the field are sacrifices he is happy to make. “When I understood that I would never be able to give back to nature what she has given to me, I decided to dedicate my life to acting as her spokesperson and working for her conservation,” he shares. As the father of two daughters, his personal mission is to ensure a bright future for his children and future generations.

According to the World Bank, at the current rate of global warming, by 2050 86 million Africans will be displaced or forced to migrate due to climate change.

But climate change impacts not only affect people. They are also responsible for shifting wildlife habitats and migration routes, another reason why conservation strategies that go beyond the boundaries of protected areas are essential. And while Africa has never been a major source of global emissions, that could change if Africa pursues the same industrialization path others have followed. That is why we believe it is essential to invest in local communities and build sustainable economies that value nature and healthy ecosystems.

As I reflect on the beginning of my second year as Chair of AWF’s Board of Trustees, one word comes to mind: momentum.

The past several years have been ones of great growth for our organization. We came out of Covid-19 in a definitional way, as co-conveners with the IUCN of the Africa Protected Areas Congress. Two powerful networks we developed were unveiled there, the Africa Protected Area Directors and the African CSOs Biodiversity Alliance. Each has since proven to be highly influential in building consensus and policy action for African conservation.

Our rights-based policies are bearing fruit. We have become leaders in defining how to implement rights-based conservation on the ground and in creating dialogue and shared solutions between potential adversaries in conservation landscapes. Our work in Cameroon’s Faro landscape is an example of this—where conflict has measurably decreased between local farmers and pastoralist herders thanks to AWF-initiated teams bringing the two groups together.

Finally, our work to link conservation to economic progress has taken off with the launch of Zimbabwe’s Biodiversity Economy Report. This landmark analysis conducted by AWF, the Ministry of the Environment, and African Leadership University demonstrates how nature’s assets, services, and products are significant drivers of the national economy. It’s a blueprint for sustainable economic development that is now being developed for other countries.

The insights we have gained into how to effectively practice conservation in Africa have been hard-won. The groundwork we have laid to make conservation a driver of growth is solid. And the pathways we have for ensuring conservation is at the table when decisions are being made are influential and diverse.

This all adds up to momentum. Momentum for AWF and for our vision of an Africa where conservation is tied to progress for people.

I am proud of our achievements this year and excited about what we will achieve in the years to come. If you are already a partner or supporter, thank you. If you are not, I invite you to join us in building a future for Africa where people and wildlife thrive.

Sincerely,

Larry Green
Chair, AWF Board of Trustees