The African Wildlife Foundation (AWF) is a leading international conservation organization focused solely on Africa. Headquartered in Nairobi, Kenya, AWF works with the people of Africa to ensure the wildlife and wild lands of Africa will endure forever. In order to ensure the contribution of wildlife to a sustainable future for Africa, AWF complements its field-level African Heartlands Program with a policy agenda entitled ‘Sustainable Economic Resources for Africa’ (SERA). SERA articulates policy priorities which AWF pursues in our relationships with governments, NEPAD, the African Union, regional economic bodies, and donors investing in Africa. Our goal through SERA is to create a supportive and enabling legal, financial and political environment to achieve conservation and development results.

Africa’s wildlife is unmatched in the world and is one of the continent’s greatest sources of ‘competitive advantages’ in the global marketplace. AWF encourages African nations to conserve, expand and add value to their wildlife resources and to position them as critical parts of development and growth strategies for the future. In support of this, AWF works hand in hand with African governments to implement an integrated conservation and development approach through AWF’s landscape-level African Heartlands Program to increase the contribution of wildlife to economic growth.

The conservation agenda for Africa must be set and led by African conservation leaders. Where this leadership capacity is still being built, AWF asserts that it is incumbent on all stakeholders to work to develop increased capacity, alongside field-level implementation. In support of this, AWF actively recruits African professionals at all levels, who presently account for more than 80% of AWF’s staff and a growing percentage of its governance board, and dedicates hundreds of thousands of dollars annually to scholarships and training opportunities for young African professionals and community partners.

Formal protected areas are central to the delivery of conservation goals. AWF encourages every African nation to create a representative protected area system and to support it fully through sound management and by building necessary infrastructure. These systems must recognize development priorities and work to deliver net benefits at local and national levels. These systems should operate with a goal of becoming self-financing in order to ensure their place as national public goods. AWF thus works with governments and local partners to create and implement management plans, support capital projects that ensure access and generate revenues, and provide technical support to safeguard parks as conservation anchors.

AWF encourages sustainable management of natural resources outside of protected areas to ensure that human needs and wants are satisfied and ecosystem viability is maintained. This can be accomplished by guaranteeing access and user-rights commensurate with ecosystem carrying capacity, encouraging co-management and cooperation between communities and authorities, and supporting appropriate agricultural intensification to ensure a secure supply of food. Ecosystem function and biodiversity resources cannot be conserved through protected area systems alone, making the principle of sustainable use central to conservation efforts. In support of this, AWF works with communities and landholders to develop and implement land and resource use plans, and works to strengthen community institutions and governance structures for sustainable resource use.

A few large-scale conservation and tourism destinations, where wildlife tourism products, physical infrastructure, and sound planning and management converge, will generate more ecological and economic benefits than small, fragmented efforts. The Serengeti-Mara-Ngorongoro and Upper Zambezi-Victoria Falls-Okavango areas are examples of the environmental and economic potential of large-scale conservation in Africa. AWF supports investment in these areas and a process of identifying other prospective destinations around the continent. AWF works with governments to structure favorable concession arrangements in areas with high tourism potential, applies its enterprise tools to broker equitable tourism deals between communities and private partners, and works with tourism professionals to encourage a sound conservation ethic as a part of their business model.

Biodiversity and ecosystems do not recognize national boundaries. Creating conservation that works requires strategic transfrontier collaboration. AWF works towards effective policies which encourage cooperation and compatible management, tourism, and revenue-sharing practices, and which facilitate the flow of resources, visitors, and the net benefits of conservation across national borders. In AWF’s experience, treaties may be an important step but are no substitute for functional coordination of conservation efforts across boundaries. AWF encourages Africa states to be bolder and more flexible in transcending purely national priorities in order to make true regional integration possible. AWF works across six transboundary landscapes to support application of compatible policies, information sharing, and joint planning and operations.

AWF respects the principle that the owners and users of land, water and wildlife resources must be given the primary stake in their management and in the benefits generated. AWF supports legally-secured tenure arrangements for communities living with wildlife and schemes to create financial incentives to offset the opportunity costs of conservation, including by adding value to existing economic activities and payments for ecosystem services. AWF works to develop and apply models that give communities a defining financial stake in the resources they conserve. AWF supports communities in clarifying and ensuring tenure, including through the creation of community trusts; is piloting conservation easements to provide incentives to keep land open for wildlife, including payments for school fees; and supports enterprise development across target sites.

Climate change stands to be the greatest challenge the world will face in the coming generation, and is predicted to become the biggest single driver of terrestrial biodiversity loss over the next 50–100 years, exceeding loss of habitat, over-exploitation, and introduction of invasive species. AWF is working to increase our understanding of likely climatic impact and adaptive strategies across Africa. AWF supports the integration of climate-induced risk assessment and scenario planning, water and soil conservation, reforestation, and identifying ‘climate proofing’ measures for wildlife corridors and communities affected by changing animal migration patterns. AWF believes that large conservation landscapes, such as African Heartlands, offer the best opportunities for adaptation.

AWF believes that avoided deforestation, particularly in the Congo Basin and Upper Guinean forests, will play a significant role in mitigating climate change, and supports the formalization of a global carbon market that will create transparency and equity in pricing and payments as well as reward countries that prioritize conservation and social benefits along with carbon sales. AWF supports African efforts to leap over inefficient technologies and embrace newer, fuel efficient technologies including stoves, solar power, and wireless communications to avoid the creation of carbon-based infrastructure. AWF is launching pilot mitigation work to build the capacity of local and government partners to participate in forest carbon markets and to adopt fuel-efficient technologies.

AWF perceives strong connections between transparent governance, democracy, respect for the rule of law, human rights, and conservation, and therefore values access to information, public participation and accountability in decision-making processes. AWF believes that social justice takes many forms, including protecting land tenure, ensuring access to water and resources, ending prejudice, and fighting diseases, such as malaria and HIV/AIDS, that disproportionately affect Africa’s youth. AWF works at community level to build participation and equity into conservation processes, and works with partners to ensure these values are upheld.

Approximately half of Africa’s population is women; yet women continue to be under-represented in most spheres of society, presenting untapped, valuable human resource capacity for Africa’s future. AWF supports the full participation of women in decision-making and leadership, and guaranteed access to opportunities in conservation and all sectors of life. AWF strives to create equal opportunities within its programs, both through internal recruitment and by engaging women externally through training and activity implementation.

AWF calls on the international community to encourage, support, and invest in the Africa-defined agenda for the continent, as embodied by NEPAD, and international processes including the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment. These bodies, along with relevant conventions, issue a common call for increases in investment in Africa’s natural resource and ecosystems; yet to date, this call has not been fully answered. AWF’s work in the African Heartlands demonstrates the potential for a high return on investment in African conservation.