GREAT PLAINS CONSERVATION FOUNDATION

Great Plains is committed to securing African landscapes at a scale large enough to protect resident and seasonal wildlife populations. In that effort, we identify and conserve key areas that are under threat, often next to national parks, World Heritage Sites, and reserves.

Great Plains currently manages over 1,000,000 acres across a variety of fragile ecosystems and implements innovative conservation and community projects within those landscapes and in partnerships with the communities living alongside them in Botswana, Kenya and Zimbabwe.

Our aim is to have robust, tried and tested methods based on science but also innovative and game-changing conservation projects that can align with global efforts, while also supporting the ambitions of partners including communities and governments. We need to be aware that like any walk in the bush, one needs to look down (at the present) as well as up at the horizon and the future. With our work, we aim always to look at short-term solutions to prevent extinctions but also look ahead 25 years to the next era of conservation leadership.
In some ways, one can view our projects as a stock portfolio, balanced for risk (because of its innovation) and reward; some areas designed to drive short-term wins and other areas with a longer view.

In balancing this combination of short-term and long-term goals as well as the needs of both wildlife and the communities where we operate, the work of Great Plains has fallen naturally under three pillars – Conservation, Communities and Land.

Conservation
Protecting biodiversity through
- Long-Term Ecosystem Protection
- Applied Research
- Emergency Conservation
- Conservation Grants

Communities
Education and community development with an emphasis on
- Reducing Context Specific Barriers to Education
– Conservation Education
– Community Outreach
– Skills Development
– Entrepreneurial Support
– Women’s Advancement & Growth

Land
Securing additional land for conservation - without land and corridors, biodiversity cannot thrive. As Great Plains Foundation, we interact with the 1.1m acres of land held under lease by Great Plains Conservation in a commercial tourism operation. Our initial mission was to acquire land leases to manage and then apply a high-end sustainable tourism business model to fund the conservation of that land. This has worked very well and, over the past decade, we have established a stable of more than a dozen stylish, sustainable, award-winning safari camps.

At the same time, this model has restricted us to acquiring land that is both important for conservation and tourism, when there are vast tracts of land that while not commercially viable, are critical for the preservation of biodiversity. Given the incredible rate at which land is being destroyed and developed, going forward our strategic aim as Great Plains is to fund land acquisition of important corridors that need significant protection and rewilding to transform them into places were
flora and fauna can thrive regardless of their immediate value as safari-tourism destinations.