AWF and The Nature Conservancy Form Partnership for Africa's Heartlands

AWF is pleased to announce an important new partnership with The Nature Conservancy (TNC) to promote conservation and human well-being in Africa.

The two organizations share an ambitious and rigorous approach to conservation. AWF seeks to conserve large landscapes -- African Heartlands -- that provide critical habitat for the continent's species to thrive sustainably. TNC works to protect the most ecologically important lands and waters around the world. Conserving Africa's incomparable wild lands is a key component of this objective.

Under the agreement, TNC provides technical and financial resources to AWF to help support the African Heartlands Program. At the same time, the results of this program become part of TNC's 2015 goal, which seeks to see that 10 per cent of all the world's Major Habitat Types are effectively conserved by 2015.

AWF and TNC will launch their collaboration with a focus on two geographies: the flooded grasslands, woodlands and floodplain river systems of southern Africa and the tropical grasslands and savannahs of East Africa.

AWF's established conservation programs will be bolstered by TNC's expertise in private land conservation, freshwater ecology and other technical areas. This is an historic partnership that will achieve great results and builds upon the work that is being carried out with AWF's most important partner, the people of Africa.

The work of conservation in a continent as vast as Africa cannot be achieved by one organization alone. Although AWF is distinct among international conservation organizations because it works exclusively in Africa, collaborations with the people of Africa and with respected organizations such as TNC are vital to AWF's mission.