Today, conserving Africa’s rich wildlife heritage depends on integrating the needs of both people and wildlife. Long gone are the days when successful conservation can be viewed as the proliferation of national parks. The reality today is that most of Africa’s wildlife ranges widely and well beyond the boundaries of such protected areas, where they share important habitats with people.

At APW, our wildlife conservation programs emphasize applied projects that have demonstrable conservation significance for local communities. In addition, APW will only consider proposals for projects that explicitly include local people as active participants and gives first priority to African scientists and students.

Highlight – The Maasailand Lion Conservation Program

Significant conservation outcomes of this program include developing the capacity of the local Maasai to scientifically monitor their lion populations, improving the ecological understanding and knowledge of lions among the Maasai, and the reduction of conflicts through a participatory, village-based conservation program that intertwines lion-livestock conflict avoidance techniques with coordinated land use and habitat planning.