PARK LIFE

From building local schools to translocating 500 elephants, conservation organisation African Parks has led the way in protecting the continent’s precious wildlife.

- Sue Watt

Our planet is screaming at humanity to wake up and understand the consequences of its actions,” Peter Fearnhead tells me from his office in locked-down South Africa. “We can listen, or we can continue to ignore it and continue to lament those consequences. Whether it’s COVID-19, Ebola or fires in Australia, they’re all calls to action.”

Peter understands, perhaps more than most, the urgent need to protect the world’s wild places and their wildlife. He’s the CEO of African Parks (AP), a renowned non-profit conservation organisation that celebrated its 20th anniversary last year. “Protected areas are crucial,” he emphasises. “They’re the building blocks for any strategy to conserve nature.”

Over two decades, AP has gradually taken on responsibility for protecting the biodiversity of 19 national parks and reserves in 11 African countries, covering a staggering 142,000km² across the continent – an area greater than the whole of England.

AP’s portfolio is the largest and most ecologically diverse of any conservation organisation in Africa, rehabilitating precious ecosystems depleted through human encroachment, habitat loss, war, poverty and poaching for an illegal wildlife trade now worth $20 billion a year. From tropical rainforests to savannah, ocean to desert, in countries at peace or suffering under volatile unrest, AP protects wild landscapes in Angola, Benin, Central African Republic, Chad, DRC, Republic of the Congo, Malawi, Mozambique, Rwanda, Zambia and Zimbabwe.