African Nature Based Tourism Platform

BOUNCING BACK BETTER 🌿 We recently published a new web story about our partner Kenya Wildlife Conservancies Association (KWCA) and one of their members, LUMO Community Wildlife Conservancy. Since the COVID-19 pandemic, Lumo has worked with KWCA to increase inclusiveness in their governance structures. This initiative is funded through a grant the African NBT Platform helped KWCA secure. Over the next few weeks, we will be sharing highlights from the story. The excerpt below focuses on Lumo’s efforts to prevent wildlife poaching: “We lost a lot of wild animals as a result of people trying to survive during the pandemic, and to a degree, this has persisted even as tourism has recovered,” said Oluoch. Many smaller species within the Conservancy, such as dikdik, are targeted for bush meat, highly valued in a still-tough economic climate exacerbated by drought and climate change. To tackle this, the Conservancy is working with its new tourism investor, the privately-run Soroi Lions Bluff Lodge, which donated a patrol vehicle and supports a number of rangers with food and accommodation. The Conservancy is also revising benefits sharing guidelines to guide the distribution, management and use of the benefits, learning from other conservancies like Ol-Pejeta Conservancy and developing a conservancy business plan to provide a framework for diversifying and improving revenue generation by the Conservancy. Read the full story on our website: https://lnkd.in/eiQ4FHBA Photo credit: Nikhil Advani WWF World Wildlife Fund WWF Africa Global Environment Facility

Focal geography spotlight 🌍 The South African government released a statement on the country’s impressive growth in tourism: “The latest official release of international arrival figures by Statistics South Africa for January to March 2024 points to a robust and growing South African tourism sector. International tourist arrivals from January to March 2024 totaled 2.4 million, representing a remarkable 15.4% increase when compared with the same period in 2023. ‘The tourism sector is a significant contributor to the economy and job creation. We are determined to continue with this momentum. South Africa remains attractive and accessible for all travelers to enjoy,’ concludes Minister de Lille.” Read the full statement here: https://lnkd.in/d2DBEtgp Photo credit: Nikhil Advani World Wildlife Fund WWF WWF South Africa WWF Africa Global Environment Facility

BOUNCING BACK BETTER 🌿 We recently published a new web story about our partner Kenya Wildlife Conservancies Association (KWCA) and one of their members, LUMO Community Wildlife Conservancy. Since the COVID-19 pandemic, Lumo has worked with KWCA to increase inclusiveness in their governance structures. This initiative is funded through a grant the African NBT Platform helped KWCA secure. Over the next few weeks, we will be sharing highlights from the story. This week’s excerpt describes Lumo’s ongoing efforts to actively include women and youth in the conservancy’s decision-making: “Ongoing engagements have made clear that youth want a stronger voice, and women have been marginalized in conservancy-related decision-making despite having some strong female role models like Malemba. Most of the 20 rangers and three non-ranger staff are men. Women comprise just 1 percent of all female community scouts in Kenya. To address this, KWCA supported Lumo in establishing a youth and women forum that meets regularly to provide feedback and serve as a representative body in conservancy decision-making. ‘We’ve had enriching sessions on the overall role of women in wildlife conservation and some of the barriers slowing down their efforts to get more involved in conservation activities surrounding Lumo Conservancy,’ said community liaison officer, Purity Manyatta. Participants could learn from one another, share experiences, and brainstorm how to raise their voices. Of Lumo’s three ranches, only one is open to new members, so women can’t join the other two at this stage. ‘They want to, though, to access benefits that accrue to members, such as bursaries for children of members,’ says Manyatta. Open to new members, Oza Ranch has dropped its registration fee from 2800 to 300 Kenyan shillings so more people, including women, can join. ‘The need for women members stems from the fact that currently, women aren’t taken seriously in leadership positions and find it hard to participate in governance-related matters as their perspective doesn’t enjoy support from the mainly male ranch members,’ says Manyatta. Kenyan government policy requires more equitable gender representation, ‘but this is not an exercise in filling a quota – it’s a real need.’” Read the full story on our website: https://lnkd.in/eiQ4FHBA Photo credit: LUMO Community Wildlife Conservancy WWF World Wildlife Fund WWF Africa Global Environment Facility

Conservationists in Kenya recently had major reason to rejoice when they spotted a critically endangered baby rhinoceros alive in the wild months after they’d last seen the tyke. Rangers in the remote, densely forested Chyulu Hills National Park first suspected an Eastern black rhino had been born when they discovered small animal tracks alongside a set of adult rhino prints in October. Hoping for proof, they set up nearby camera traps, which use infrared sensors to detect moving objects, such as animals. Within a month, they had video of the calf lumbering through the hilly brush with its mother. “Then the signs dried up, and weeks went by,” Big Life Foundation, which works to protect African wildlife, shared in a March post. “It wasn’t necessarily bad news, but it was concerning. So imagine our excitement in spotting it on camera again: bigger and still very much alive.” Young rhinos face threats including illness and predators, so every day that they survive to become stronger and more familiar with their surroundings increases their chances of making it to adulthood. This is exciting news for conservation in Kenya, a focal country for the African Nature-Based Tourism Platform. Read the full story here: https://lnkd.in/exRyvtHa Photo credit: Nikhil Advani WWF World Wildlife Fund WWF Africa Global Environment Facility

BOUNCING BACK BETTER 🌿 We recently published a new web story about our partner Kenya Wildlife Conservancies Association (KWCA) and one of their members, LUMO Community Wildlife Conservancy. Since the COVID-19 pandemic, Lumo has worked with KWCA to increase inclusiveness in their governance structures. This initiative is funded through a grant the African NBT Platform helped KWCA secure. Over the next few weeks, we will be sharing highlights from the story. This week, we see some of the challenges surrounding rangers and resource access from the perspective of Ludovika Malemba, Lumo’s head ranger: “Over the last two decades, [Malemba] has seen droughts and illegal grazing change the landscape, which includes a critical elephant migration corridor. At the same time, communities adjacent to the Conservancy live with the risk of large mammals, such as elephants trampling crops and predators attacking livestock. Finding a balance between the needs of wildlife and people is hard, especially as Malenda must enforce wildlife protection laws that regulate resource use in the Conservancy, which can mean telling men and women from her own community of about 5000 households where they can and can’t graze their highly-valued livestock. The grant to improve Lumo’s resilience and enhance its conservation and community outcomes will include human rights-focused ranger training to entrench human rights practices in rangers’ operations. Through the grant, Lumo will also develop and implement a holistic grazing plan and by laws entrenching Indigenous Knowledge aligned with the conservancy management plan.” Read the full story on our website: https://lnkd.in/eiQ4FHBA Photo credit: Nikhil Advani WWF World Wildlife Fund WWF Africa Global Environment Facility

Conservation news in eastern and southern Africa 🌱 A group of scientists is proposing the designation of a new African “ecoregion” consisting of an “inland archipelago” of 30 isolated mountains, some harboring animals and plants found nowhere else on Earth. The South East Africa Montane Archipelago, also known as “sky islands,” is found in southern Malawi and northern Mozambique and offers unique conservation opportunities. Read the full story from Mongabay here: https://lnkd.in/esZ99rYu WWF World Wildlife Fund WWF Africa Global Environment Facility

BOUNCING BACK BETTER 🌿 We recently published a new web story about our partner Kenya Wildlife Conservancies Association (KWCA) and one of their members, LUMO Community Wildlife Conservancy. Since the COVID-19 pandemic, Lumo has worked with KWCA to increase inclusiveness in their governance structures. This initiative is funded through a grant the African NBT Platform helped KWCA secure. Over the next few weeks, we will be sharing highlights from the story. The excerpt below details the events that prompted Lumo Conservancy to reimagine its future. Vincent Oluoch of KWCA explained that “the community weren’t happy with the benefits they received through their agreement with a tourism operator running a lodge in the Conservancy, and when the COVID-19 pandemic shut down travel, even these dried up. In March 2020 the lodge operator put all staff on unpaid leave. Tourism-funded conservation activities were also scaled down or suspended as conservancy operations like security patrols depended entirely on park fees paid by tourists. Conservancy staff – from rangers to lodge employees – had little else to sustain them, highlighting the vulnerabilities of Lumo’s tourism-reliant model. The COVID-19-related restrictions also meant the annual general meeting of the Conservancy was put on hold, and communication with ranch members slowed to a trickle, leaving many feeling disempowered. ‘The uncertainty of it was even worse than the actual impact because nobody could tell you when it would end.’” In response, the African NBT Platform assisted KWCA with a grant application for funding through the International Union for the Conservation of Nature’s (IUCN) biodiversity and Protected Areas Management (BIOPAMA) program to help Lumo Conservancy recover from the pandemic and further improve the sustainable management of natural resources in the region. Read the full story on our website: https://lnkd.in/eiQ4FHBA Photo credit: LUMO Community Wildlife Conservancy WWF World Wildlife Fund WWF Africa Global Environment Facility

In a recent article published by Devex Newswire, USAID’s progress towards its localization goals are examined. “The agency’s current leader, Samantha Power, has taken up the banner of localization, announcing in 2021 that 25% of USAID’s funding would go to local organizations by 2025. So where do things stand today? As of USAID’s last progress report for 2022 funding, about 10% of the agency’s funding went to local organizations.” The African Nature-based Tourism Platform is working to address this gap by connecting donors directly with community-led initiatives. The Platform is working to increase the amount of funding going to organizations that address real needs on the ground. Learn more about this in our “Data to Impact 2023” report: https://lnkd.in/dFeWifGF  Read the full Devex Newswire article here: https://lnkd.in/gU2CmW3k WWF World Wildlife Fund WWF Africa Global Environment Facility

ICYMI: Our partner Umoja Wildlife Conservancies of Uganda recently hosted a webinar to launch the release of their new five year strategic plan. Since 2021, Umoja has been actively involved in building the capacity of conservancies, raising awareness about conservation, and providing support to communities and landowners interested in conserving wildlife on their land. Their strategic plan is a culmination of pooled resources, knowledge, and technical guidance from conservancy leaders, conservation experts, and partners committed to nurturing community-led conservation initiatives. The webinar, facilitated by Maliasili, reviewed the plan's implementation process as well as Umoja's four main goals for the next five years. To access the full five year strategy, which was developed with support from the African Nature Based Tourism Platform and facilitated by Maliasili, visit: https://lnkd.in/dX7sDEkS To watch the full webinar, visit: https://lnkd.in/eChM6ief WWF World Wildlife Fund WWF Africa Global Environment Facility

New Funding Opportunities 🌿 We have just released our latest update on funding opportunities in our monthly newsletter. It details opportunities related to community resilience to climate disasters, youth empowerment, economic development, and many additional topics relevant to communities and conservation organizations. Read the full newsletter here: https://lnkd.in/eSDayr9V If you haven’t signed up for these updates yet, you can do so here: https://lnkd.in/euJeKFyS Image credit: Jjumba Martin / Umoja #fundingopportunities #naturebasedsolutions #NBTAfrica #Africa WWF World Wildlife Fund WWF Africa Global Environment Facility Maliasili