African Wildlife Foundation

(www.awf.org)

The African Wildlife Foundation is one of my heroes because it helps all of the animals in Africa stay alive and keeps them from extinction. They are trying to conserve wildlife by saving animals whose mothers were killed by poaching or killed from starvation dehydration and loss of habitat. They are also trying to conserve land by making it a protected area. They are really trying to help animals in Africa so they can be there for many years to come.

The African Wildlife Foundation helps animals and the environment. AWF's mission is as follows: "The African Wildlife Foundation, together with the people of Africa, works to ensure the wildlife and wild lands of Africa will endure forever." They save animals by teaching in the area how to protect the animals and how to take care of their land. They save their land utilizing research and protecting wildlife habitat.

My contact Erin feels that it is not so much the organization that is heroic but the people involved in the organization that are heroic. The people of the African Wildlife Foundation risk their lives working in war zones and dangerous jungle environments to save African animals that are at risk of extinction. Each of these “heros” is working to save a specific African animal that is at risk. The most famous was Diane Fossey who was working with gorillas in the early 1980’s and was murdered in the warzone. They made a movie about her called Gorillas in the Mist. There are many other equally heroic people working with different animals that did not get this kind of publicity.

The African Wildlife Foundation’s headquarters is in Nairobi, Kenya. The countries that it works in are: Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Rwanda, Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Botswana, Mozambique, South Africa, Zambia, Zimbabwe and Angola. The African Wildlife Foundation was founded in 1961 and began to increase awareness of the problems with different programs in the 1970’s as well as continuing the more hands on aspects of saving the animals to this day.

The biggest task of the African Wildlife Foundation is to bring back all of the animals from near extinction. The foundation cannot do this by itself; it needs the global community to step it up and help to save the animals. For example, Starbucks Coffee has already pitched in to help in a big way but much more help is needed. If the people do not help, there is little the foundation can do by itself without financial support.