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The spring hare sits with its hind legs stretching forward, its body bent forward between them with the flat top of the head and ears in direct contact with the ground. This position enables it to detect vibrations. |
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The African Heartlands
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The African HeartlandsA New Approach to African Wildlife Conservation The only way to conserve Africa’s wildlife is to manage Africa’s wild lands. Not small pockets of land, not even national-park-sized swaths of it, but vast landscapes that range for hundreds, even thousands, of miles. 
To do this, we need to involve, educate and equip local people to practice sustainable land management – and reap economic benefits. We need to lay a foundation of painstaking scientific research to understand the landscape, the wildlife, the people and their complex interactions. We need to build an intricate web of laws, policies and practices that bring stakeholders together – from government departments to villages to safari operators – so that lands are managed intelligently for the benefit of all. This is hard work. It is long-term work. It is complicated work. But in the end, it is the only approach that will work. AWF’s members, donors and steadfast partners make it possible. Won’t you help? AWF’s Solution: The African Heartlands Program All of Africa’s lands sustain life. But certain key landscapes are absolutely essential to conservation—thanks to their unmatched concentrations of wildlife and their potential to sustain viable populations for centuries to come. AWF has done the hard work of identifying those landscapes. They are the AWF African Heartlands. Far larger than any park or reserve, an African Heartland combines national parks and local villages, government lands and private lands into a large, cohesive conservation landscape that often spans international borders. In an African Heartland, people and wildlife live side by side, and the needs of both are balanced. In an African Heartland, AWF works with stakeholders to design land conservation strategies, protect species through applied research and conservation efforts and empower people through training and economic development. In AWF’s eight Heartlands, the future of Africa – its wildlife, habitat and people – will be secured. Visit the African Heartlands, where AWF's conservation action takes place.
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