African Parks Conservation

The African Parks Network is an international non-governmental organization which seeks to address environmental conservation issues in Africa, especially the decline of many of Africa's national parks. It was founded in 2000 as a not-for-profit organization by a group of conservationists (Mavuso Msimang, Anthony Hall-Martin, Michael Eustace, Peter Fearnhead, and Paul Fentener van Vlissingen).

African Parks currently manages 10 parks in 7 African countries: Central African Republic, Chad, Democratic Republic of Congo, Malawi, Republic of Congo, Rwanda and Zambia. The total area under management, in public-private partnerships with governments, covers 6 million hectares.

African Parks Network is registered as a not-for-profit company under Section 21 of the Companies Act of South Africa and its head office is in Johannesburg. African Parks' CEO is Peter Fearnhead. Each park is managed by a separate legal entity, registered in the host country. These legal entities are mostly established by African Parks Network for the purpose of implementing an agreement with the Government for the management of a specific national park.

African Parks is supported by a number of affiliate organisations established in key donor countries. Their primary role is to facilitate the establishment of partnerships in their respective host countries with individuals, institutions and companies, that are willing to become involved in the work of African Parks. Currently these affiliate organisations include:

The following parks are managed by African Parks Network (by December 2015):

African Parks is currently involved in the creation of two other protected areas:

Prospections are going on to take the management of other African protected areas. By December 2015, African Parks is under negotiations to take further parks in Kenya (Buffalo Springs and the Shaba National Reserves) and Tanzania (Burigi, Biharamulo and Kimisi Game Reserves). Negotiations failed to take the administration of Gashaka-Gumpti and Cross River National Parks in Nigeria. There is an interest to take the management of one marine Mozambican protected area, which could be Bazaruto National Park.

The organization is involved in a massive elephant translocation from Majete and Liwonde, in order to restock the Nkhotakota wildlife reserve. Thousands of antilopes and five hundreds elephants will be released in Nkhotakota by 2017, where a fenced sanctuary was made.

...
Wikipedia