African Wildlife Foundation - African Leadership
Wildlife conservation is more than the act of maintaining and protecting our homeland.
True conservation is a mindset. A mindset rooted in the understanding that taking care of
our land is taking care of all of us. As we shape and mold a bold vision for a modern Africa,
we must understand that conservation is paramount to its success.
The African Wildlife foundation knows that African voices need to be at the heart of this
effort, and for 60 years we have cultivated and grown leaders across the continent to be at
the forefront of this movement.
The African Wildlife Foundation was developed with one core idea in mind: sustainable
conservation must be African led. AWF came into existence at a point in history where we
saw several countries gaining their independence from European colonists. The 1960s
marked a period where many Africans were coming into control of their own land for the
first time in centuries. For conservationists, this brought about the question: “what will
happen to African lands?” In their eyes, it remained to be seen if Africans could properly
protect and maintain their land and wildlife, and two prevailing schools of thought
eventually emerged. One side believed that Africans were ill-equipped to take on the
monumental task, while the other side believed that sustainable development of African
lands could only be achieved by African-led conservation.
The founders of AWF were of the mind that local leaders could be trained and outfitted
with tools to lead their own initiatives. With that outlook, AWF established Mweka College
in 1963 to identify and cultivate those leaders. The school centered on the goal of lowering
the barrier for entry into the field of conservation. In order to spark real change, we knew
that communities needed to be fully invested in conservation efforts, including
participating in programs themselves. . So, we launched programs like the Charlotte
Fellowship and the Conservation Leadership & Management Program in order to provide
access to quality education and training in African communities. And these initiatives
worked. Today, alumni of AWF programs or Mweka college are at the forefront of missions
and initiatives across the continent, and the numbers of conservationists continues to grow.
Over time, the need for a unified African approach to conservation became even more clear.
As our reach expanded, we were able to double down on our efforts and coordinate
resources across the continent. We understood that it wasn’t enough to train people on how
to take care of the land; we needed policies and legal structures that connected different
efforts, that created larger systems for conservation programs, and baked conservation into
nations’ infrastructure. To that end, we began convening leaders across the continent to
lobby and push policies that served our mission. And when we say leaders, we mean
leaders at every level: youth leaders, church leaders, political leaders, educational leaders,
and more, all working toward building a better Africa for their communities. By