Program areas at AWF
Living with wildlifein fiscal year 2023, we successfully completed three multi-year eu-funded landscape programs in the drc and cameroon:in bili-uele, drc, the program was a five-year eu-funded project that improved governance and management of natural resources for sustainable development, conserved ecological integrity, and improved security in the landscape. Land use plans have allocated 4,527 square kilometers for Wildlife corridors. In faro, cameroon, the program revived activities in a nearly abandoned protected area, faro national park, established community structures to combat poaching and promote peaceful transhumance, and supported sustainable livelihoods. (continued on schedule o)in dja, cameroon, we boosted conservation-friendly agriculture and forest harvesting. This project reduced illegal hunting and used training and equipment to bolster capacity among eco-guards. Due to this program, local incomes increased by 78%, and poverty was reduced by 83%. Additionally, in the drc's maringa-lopori-wamba landscape, awf provided small business microgrants and training for local business associations. As of july 2023, the project had awarded micro-grants in support of 90 new businesses, benefiting a total of 1,890 people in 270 homes.fiscal year 2023 saw strides in a pilot program to restore 450 hectares of volcanoes national park in rwanda. Exercising the guidelines and best practices of free, prior, and informed consent, awf engaged 500 families living on degraded farmland that used to be part of the park. They were presented with a land purchase initiative that would compensate them for their land so it could be restored as gorilla habitat and relocate their families to new green towns designed to provide better infrastructure and economic opportunities. In mkomazi, the tanzanian side of the tsavo-mkomazi landscape that crosses into kenya, we introduced sunflower farming to minimize human-wildlife conflict and give farmers a new income stream. In addition, awf supported fish farmers to reduce the overexploitation of lake jipe, installing one fishpond, offering 1,200 fingerlings and 28 bags of feed, and training the fish farmers.
Caring for wildlifein fiscal year 2023, awf's counter Wildlife trafficking program trained law enforcement officers in kenya, uganda, tanzania, ethiopia, and the drc in best practices for responding to Wildlife crime. We also built capacity among 161 law enforcement personnel in the drc, ethiopia, and kenya, including prosecutors and judicial officers, to adopt new tools and methodologies to address the changing Wildlife crime landscape on the continent. We officially handed over a new canine training facility to the tanzania Wildlife management authority. Across six countries, canine units we work with detected 55 finds of Wildlife contraband in fiscal year 2023. (continued on schedule o)sniffer dog units were deployed by government handlers in six airports and two ports, searching 18,429 flights, 1,925,587 pieces of cargo, and 9,281,393 pieces of luggage. Tracking dogs were used by authorities in four protected areas.in the drc's maringa-lopori-wamba landscape, awf trained and equipped rangers to manage the protected area. As a result of this work and our community approach mentioned above, poaching has stopped among local community members, range for elephants and bonobos has increased, human-wildlife conflict incidents have reduced, and forest elephant numbers in the landscape are improving.across all of the 17 landscapes where awf worked, we actively measured 26 Wildlife populations to determine if they were stable, increasing, or decreasing and analyzed field and gis data to determine the causes. This includes ten elephant populations, six large carnivore populations, five rhino populations, four great ape populations, and two giraffe populations.
Leading for wildlifein fiscal year 2023, awf increased African leadership in conservation and development by co-convening with the iucn and the government of rwanda the inaugural africa protected areas congress that took place in kigali, rwanda, in july 2022. The congress galvanized 2,400 participants from 53 African countries to build a shared vision for african-led conservation, resulting in the kigali call to action, a detailed policy roadmap for the continent. Afw's leadership programs championed coalitions of African stakeholders in their everyday decision-making and supported them in bringing their perspectives to global conferences. (continued on schedule o)we amplified the African civil society biodiversity alliance (acba), the African protected area directors (apad), the African group of negotiators (agn), and the global youth biodiversity network africa (gybn) at global meetings of the convention on biological diversity, the convention on international trade in endangered species of wild fauna and flora, and the united nations framework convention on climate change. Awf assisted African countries in the development of the kunming-montreal global biodiversity framework through supporting the agn. We hosted preparatory meetings in botswana and gabon, ensuring African countries aligned positions and strategized on how best to approach negotiations; we provided english-french interpretation for all sessions; we financed the online coordination platform of the agn; and we presented a science paper alongside acba that puts people at the center of target 3 of the framework. Ahead of and during the un biodiversity conference, two awf policy fellows supported the agn administratively.we contributed financial and technical support for the zimbabwe government's development of the first-ever zimbabwe biodiversity economy report, which provides a framework to mainstream the value of nature into private and public sector economic decision-making. We facilitated cross-border meetings with zimparks in zimbabwe's mid-zambezi valley landscape to strengthen collaboration between zimbabwe and zambia law enforcement agents. Similarly, we continued to strengthen cross-border Wildlife security collaboration between kenya and tanzania, including planning for concurrent operations in every ecosystem along the kenya-tanzania international border.in tanzania, we completed the relocation and construction of manyara ranch school and handed management of it over to the local government through the monduli district council. Around 1,050 students attend the school, which was previously located in an important Wildlife corridor. Additionally, we made investments in training African conservation filmmakers and journalists through awf's African conservation voices program. This included bringing 17 young filmmakers to a major global natural history filmmaking conference to network and premiere conservation films shot with awf support. We also ran digital classes for journalists in eastern africa, southern africa, west africa, and central africa on topics such as feature writing, pitching, storytelling, investigative journalism in the digital age, fact-checking, and effective social media writing.