9 facts that show our impact at a glance

Our work makes a real impact in the world right here, right now. But our Impact strategy is equally geared towards our vision for the future as it is towards present-day change. If we are to one day double the land we help protect – and double it again – we must pave the way for young people to take our place as stewards of the natural world. 

With the support of the Wilderness Trust and various local non-profit organisations, CITW has established Eco-Clubs at partner schools in several African countries, offering interested children the chance to learn about environmental issues while developing invaluable life skills. 

By educating and inspiring young minds and instilling in them a deep appreciation for the environment, CITW’s Eco-Clubs lay the groundwork for the conservation leaders of the future. 

Being truly immersed in the wild is a privilege we wanted to extend not just to our guests, but to the children who call these areas home. So, for four days a year, a Wilderness or partner camp will close to host select students from the Eco-Club programme, giving them the chance to experience the wildlife areas they live so close to, yet seldom explore as foreign visitors do. 

Our camp programmes include interactive workshops and wildlife activities like game drives, all under the mentorship of dedicated Wilderness volunteers who often come from the very same communities as the young participants. By acting as friends, counsellors and more importantly, role models, these volunteers show the children something they won’t soon forget: “If we can do it, so can you”.

Take Wilderness Sabyinyo in Rwanda, for example. This camp may by operated by Wilderness, but it’s owned by community-based non-profit Sabyinyo Community Livelihood Association (SACOLA). With the help of the fees earned from leasing land to Wilderness, SACOLA is able to drive tangible, genuinely transformative socio-economic development within the community, all while conserving the local environment. 

When Covid hit, and countless communities lost their livelihoods from the halt of tourism, the Wilderness Conservation Heroes campaign helped raise USD750,000 to provide our neighbours with food parcels and other essentials.

In 2022, we reaffirmed our funding of the operating costs of the Scorpion Anti-Poaching Unit (SAPU) in Zimbabwe’s Hwange National Park. This funding helped ensure the SAPU team and the park’s rangers could continue the vital work of reducing poaching levels in the area.

 
SAPU patrolled over 6,000 kilometres of Hwange National Park between January 2023 and 2024 alone, collecting invaluable data on the impact of poaching on wildlife populations, removing wire snares and arresting illegal poachers.

The Wilderness Trust also provided support to the Endangered Wildlife Trust’s (EWT) Vultures for Africa programme. Recognising the critical role vultures play in cleaning up ecosystems, as well as their drastically declining populations over the last 30 years, Vultures for Africa works tirelessly to combat the many threats faced by these iconic birds of prey, chief among them being direct and indirect poisoning. 

Having trained more than 6,500 people in wildlife poisoning response and prevention – positively effecting seven vulture species across 17 African countries – the Vultures for Africa programme was an obvious partnership for the Wilderness Trust. 

Through its donation of USD5,000 to the programme in 2023, Wilderness showed its commitment to protecting these iconic birds of prey and the role they play in maintaining ecological balance.

Another wildlife protection initiative supported by Wilderness and the Trust is EcoExist, a laudable Botswana-based organisation that seeks to reduce conflict between elephants and people.

 
In line with our long-term commitment help alleviate human-wildlife conflict, Wilderness donated five satellite collars to EcoExist in 2022, to be used to collect invaluable data on elephants’ movement patterns, resource use and ecological impacts. These collars help ensure the wellbeing of the elephants wearing them while making data-driven land-use allocation possible.

If you’d like to assist us on our mission, you can make a general donation to the Trust or donate towards a specific project on our website. Let’s increase the world’s wilderness and change lives together.