Cheetahs are the most endangered of the big cats in Africa and less than 10,000 remain in the wild. The Cheetah Conservation Fund (CCF) was set up 25 years ago and is now recognized as the world’s leading organisation on the cheetah. The International Research and Education Centre in Namibia is the primary base for all CCF’s global activities, supported by chapters in US, UK, Canada and other countries.
CCF has developed a truly inspirational holistic model for cheetah conservation based on the premise that saving the cheetah will save everything else, including humans. The model comprises “Future Farmers of Africa” programme, one part of which is the Livestock Guarding Dog project. This has been so successful that livestock losses have reduced to almost 0% and there is a 2-year waiting list for puppies in Namibia. Dogs have also been sent to South Africa and Tanzania to conserve cheetahs and other big cats.
Other parts of the model include education, developing work opportunities for local farmers and communities, restoring habitat, implementing the innovative land-clearing Bushblok fuel project, research and releasing cheetahs back into the wild.
This model has proved so successful that cheetah numbers in Namibia have doubled to 3,000. CCF’s vision is to scale-up and roll out this model to other cheetah countries in Africa and beyond. Our call to arms is: “Change the world and save a species”
What an extraordinary legacy that would be. Please join us.
