The African Conservation Fund

When an individual or corporation invests funds in a startup enterprise, we call it venture capitalism.

African Conservation Fund and our partners in East Africa are investing in enterprises that promote both community and ecosystem health -  a strategy we're calling Venture Conservation.

Venture Conservation features exciting projects in which Venture Conservationists can invest dollars that not only directly save wildlife but some of which can also be linked to things like carbon offsets or a fabulous safari vacation.

Time and again it's been proven that simply passing out large foundation and government grants is not enough to solve the world's most pressing problems: crushing poverty and widespread environmental degredation from  human population growth as well as climate change, to name a few, need to be addressed locally and strategically, not with bandaid-aid, which builds dependence and further poverty.

In East Africa, a few simple but startling facts underscore the need for a new, non-governmental approach to conservation:

- East Africa is home to astounding diversity: more mammal species live in the Rift Valley than anywhere else.

- Nearly 70% of the famous wildlife lives outside the National Parks - on privately owned lands, mostly those of nomadic Maasai pastoralists.

- The wildlife lives in these areas because the Maasai maintain their traditional lifestyle, keeping the rangelands open and productive as well as keeping poachers at bay.

- While ecotourism brings in hundreds of millions in revenue, in the present system almost none of the money reaches local people - the people who live with and maintain the very wildlife tourists come to see. Poverty remains a crushing problem for the Maasai, who need a cash economy to live in today's world.

 African Conservation Fund and our partners - particularly the African Conservation Centre and the South Rift Association of Land Owners (SORALO, an all-Maasai conservation land trust) - are supporting several conservation enterprises that are effectively establishing income-generating projects for communities that are tied to conservation, from ecotourism to research tourism to art and bushcraft ventures. (The photo above is a new South Rift Research Station and Resource Centre, which is owned by the local community and operated by the women's group.)

Most of the projects we are supporting are examples of local "social entrepreneurship" that is gaining notoriety worldwide (see Nicolas Kristof's New York Times column on the new social entrepreneurs at the Davlos World Economic Forum).

Click on the links below to read about Venture Conservation projects in which you can invest.

And please call (U.S. phone: 520-591-1410) or email Roseann Hanson, executive director, to discuss a project that interests you. We are working on launching several investment opportunities that are not yet available online (a timeshare-like lodge investment program for a community in the South Rift, and a carbon-credit-offset program for several of these community projects).

• Art for Conservation - empowering women one bead at a time
  
• Research - finding solutions to local problems while adding to worldwide conservation knowledge
• Want to learn more about the projects first-hand before investing? Join us on a safari.
  

Join us today - and become part of our growing community of Venture Conservationists, whose vision for the future goes beyond just simply writing a check  . . . it means getting involved, person-to-person.