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Gifts from Nature
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The Conservancy strives to maximize its impact in Africa by joining our technical expertise and financial resources with the established presence and homegrown knowledge of local partners.
The Conservancy provides conservation expertise and financial support to bolster the African Wildlife Foundation’s (AWF) work in East and Southern Africa's expansive grasslands.
AWF’s conservation strategies include supporting local land trusts to keep large ranches and wildlife migration corridors intact, finding solutions to human-animal conflicts and promoting sustainable ecotourism to provide economic opportunity for local communities. AWF’s success over the decades has resulted from empowering Africans to be the stewards of Africa and of their own well-being.
Wangari Maathai celebrated her Nobel Peace Prize in 2004 by planting a tree. While practical, the act symbolized the success of Maathai’s Green Belt Movement. Recognizing how environmental destruction deepened poverty, Maathai has enlisted—and paid—Kenyan women to plant and nurture 40 million trees in Africa since the 1970s.
The women not only have lifted themselves up from poverty, but have also helped stabilize degraded ecosystems, enhanced wildlife habitat and—with sustainable harvesting—produced natural resources for themselves and their communities. The Conservancy works with the movement to identify the most ecologically critical areas for planting.
Founded 1977, the Jane Goodall Institute continues Dr. Goodall’s pioneering research of chimpanzee behavior—research that transformed scientific perceptions of the relationship between humans and animals. Today, the Institute is a global leader in the effort to protect chimpanzees and their habitats.
It also is widely recognized for establishing innovative community-centered conservation and development programs in Africa, and the Roots & Shoots education program, which has groups in more than 95 countries.
Other key partners initially include Round River Conservation Studies, Save the Rhino Trust, Lewa Wildlife Conservancy, Northern Rangelands Trust, and WWF's Coastal East Africa program along with numerous government entities and local communities.
Nature picture credits (left to right): Photo © Gwynn Crichton/TNC (Boat on Lake Tanganyika at sunset in Kigoma, Tanzania); Photo © Gwynn Crichton/TNC (Two zebras having a mid-day drink in the Seronera River in Serengeti, Tanzania); Photo © Gwynn Crichton/TNC.