Africa Conservation Director

The Nature Conservancy works with local communities, governments and organizations to conserve Africa’s important places.  Africa’s wild lands and waters are home to incredible numbers and diversity of species living close to people.  For most rural Africans, connection to place takes on unique meaning—more so than anywhere else on Earth because their daily existence depends on the productivity of their natural resources.

Some 60 percent of Africa’s lands and waters are managed by the people who live on them. These people are undoubtedly the most vulnerable on Earth. A continuing threat is their lack of control over the communal lands and waters they depend on for survival.  And as the people struggle, so too does the wildlife that relies on the same resources. Therefore, our work in Africa is focused on perfecting the best examples of community-led conservation across the continent’s vast shared lands and waters.

Through our place-based projects in northern Kenya, northern and western Tanzania, western Zambia, Namibia, Gabon and the West Indian Ocean, we have the opportunity to protect more than 37 million acres of land, freshwater and marine habitat by building local institutions and cultivating a culture of conservation that also provides tangible benefits to people.