Biodiversity loss is one of the greatest challenges facing our planet. The degradation of biodiversity accelerates climate change, threatens millions of livelihoods with increased food insecurity, provokes conflict over land and water and leads to the transmission of zoonotic diseases that may lead to another pandemic. We are currently losing species at an alarming rate, almost entirely due to human activity. This will only worsen as the global human population continues to grow and consume ever more natural resources.
Tusk’s project partners have identified habitat loss and land-use change as the greatest threat to the conservation of their project areas over the next 10 years – closely followed by human population growth. In the past 10 years we have also witnessed a rapid escalation in human-wildlife conflict resulting from these challenges.
The Solution:
Since Tusk was founded in 1990, we have invested more than £130 million to support the growth of over 250 local partner organisations and wildlife ranger units in more than 25 African countries, enabling and empowering the conservation movement across the continent.
We direct funding towards tackling the greatest threats to Africa’s biodiversity and affected communities, helping our project partners to protect endangered species, promote human-wildlife coexistence, find sustainable solutions to maintain critical habitats, and provide engaging and impactful conservation education programmes.
We also invest in the critical role wildlife rangers play as nature’s guardians, protecting Africa’s natural resources and supporting their local communities. Through the Wildlife Ranger Challenge and associated Ranger Fund, we are helping to improve the status and welfare of rangers across Africa, and professionalising the sector.
When lions eat our livestock we become enemies, but lions are like me; they need to feed their children. As Lion Rangers our mission is to stop lions from killing livestock and protect wild prey for them to eat instead. That way people and lions do not have to be enemies and can share the same land.
Thomas Mojong, Lion Ranger coordinator, Lion Landscapes
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Species we Protect
Tusk supports the full spectrum of Africa’s landscapes and threatened species, from iconic mammals such as black rhino or ‘Big Tusker’ elephants of Kenya’s savanna, to the seagrass-eating dugong of the Indian Ocean and the elusive Cross River gorilla of western Africa’s tropical rainforest.
Projects
We provide critical funding to enable our project partners to grow and increase their impact on habitat and wildlife.
The Ripple Effect of Collaboration
Damian Bell, CEO of the Honeyguide Foundation, discusses the impact of attending the Tusk Conservation Symposium and the benefits of collaboration and combining resources.