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In a major victory for wildlife, Japanese giant Internet retailer Rakuten announced on July 6, 2017, that it was banning the sale of ivory on its site, with trading to be phased out over the next month. Rakuten Inc., valued at $16.48 billion on…

It’s my pleasure to tell you a bit about myself. My name is Yohannes Teshome Seifu, and I come from an Ethiopian family. I have a Master’s degree in Natural Resources Management with a focus on Forest and Nature Conservation…

Lioness in Tarangire / Photo by: Leslie Wainger Our final “day” in Tarangire was really just a drive out of the park, then on to Manyara Ranch and the affiliated primary school, before finishing up at Gibbs Farm, a resort (the only…

I just arrived in Rwanda and am thrilled to be back in mountain gorilla territory - montane forests thick and misty as clouds. Everyone here is gearing up for Kwita Izina, an annual gorilla-naming ceremony modeled after the age-old Rwandan tradition…

Sugarcane grown in southern Tanzania’s Kilombero landscape makes up 33 percent of the total sugar produced in the country. African Wildlife Foundation partner Kilombero Sugar Company, the largest sugar producer in Tanzania, works with 8,000…

​ World Parks Congresses come around once a decade. The last one was ten years ago in Durban South Africa. Now the protected areas community is convened in Sydney Australia. Madiba, the great Nelson Mandela, called for leadership and…

We went out knowing that we were in the known territory of unhabituated groups of mountain gorillas as well as the recently habituated tourism group Oruzogo. We were conducting reconnaissance trails in Bwindi Impenetrable National Park's…

The sharply differing reactions to the partial lifting of the ban on elephant ivory trade are emblematic of the ongoing struggle over how to best protect Africa's elephants and the interests of their human neighbors.Last June, after two weeks of…

Two contrasting scenes stand out in my mind when I remember my past as a young boy herding my father’s cattle in the former wildlands of Domboshava, Zimbabwe. Mountains covered with forest full of diverse, juicy wild fruits—this was the common…

For Dodo Tshidinda, a typical day at work looks nothing like what you might expect. Traversing hundreds of kilometers on a motorcycle deep in the Congo Basin rainforest is par for the course for Dodo, African Wildlife Foundation’s Program Officer in…

On World Ranger Day, the International Ranger Federation estimated that more than one-and-a-half million rangers are needed to achieve our global targets by 2030. Yet, the current ranger workforce stands at 286,000, showing the need to invest in a…

Heartland Offers Chance to Test New Conservation ApproachesIn the world of wildlife conservation, the Laikipia-Samburu Heartland is truly a land of opportunity.A starkly beautiful area with an exceptionally wide diversity of wildlife, Laikipia…

Nackoney, J. and Williams, D. 2013. A comparison of scenarios for rural development planning and conservation in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Biological Conservation 164: 140-149.

AWF Working Papers, 2005.

Chance Conservationists is a series highlighting AWF staff who have embraced people-centered conservation in their professions despite coming from diverse academic fields. These remarkable individuals now espouse conservation values to propel the…