Buffett, Walton-backed African Parks focus on rhinos, expanding to 30 protected areas

Key topics:African Parks to localise staff and train Africans in Rwanda academyPush to grow local tourism and boost community benefits from parks$166m nonprofit expands parks, rhino relocations, anti-poaching efforts.By Bonolo Mokonoto.African Parks, a conservation nonprofit backed by some of the world’s richest people, is seeking to localize staffing and boost the number of tourists from the countries in which it operates. The organization, which has an annual budget of $166 million and oversees a combined land area bigger than Cambodia, is opening an academy in Rwanda to train African conservation professionals, with the first students expected to enroll next year. At the same time it’s working on boosting the share of African tourists from the current 59% of the 188,000 that visited last year.“You can have all the money in the world, all the intent, but if you haven’t got the people to be able to make it happen, then it’s not going to happen,” Peter Fearnhead, African Parks’ chief executive officer said in an interview in Bloomberg’s Johannesburg office..Read more:.Should wildlife parks be fenced?: 60 African examples gives us an answer.The academy is part of a broader approach by conservation groups to ensure that local communities benefit from wildlife-protection programs. That means allowing them to share in profits, providing jobs and facilitating access to the parks. Walton, BuffettApproaches that keep protected areas and local communities apart and instead cater for wealthy foreign tourists have bred resentment, leading to poaching and resistance to the expansion of reserves.What is really important “is the education behind nature and nature conservation and why it’s necessary,” Fearnhead said. The organization draws its donor funding, which makes up the bulk of its budget, from a range of sources including the foundations of some of the world’s richest people including Rob Walton, Howard G. Buffett and Hansjoerg Wyss.The African Conservation Academy, which the organization is starting in partnership with the Rwanda Development Board, expects its graduates to work across the continent. Encouraging local tourism is also a key focus. “If a local citizen visits their national park, it builds in them an understanding of it and an appreciation for it,” bolstering support for the project, Fearnhead said..Read more:.De-horning Rhinos cuts poaching by 78%, landmark study finds.Local tourism helps build public support for biodiversity protection, while international tourism generates more income per visitor.African Parks runs 24 parks across the continent - from Chad to Angola - and aims to manage 30 by the end of the decade. In South Africa in 2023, it took over a bankrupt rhino breeding project where 2,000 southern white rhinos, or 15% of the global population, were kept on a ranch 167 km (104 miles) southwest of Johannesburg. .Read more:.SA man who bred world’s biggest Rhino herd charged with smuggling R250m of horns.To date, 745 rhinos have been moved to parks within South Africa, Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo. Future transfers are planned for Namibia, Kenya and Eswatini in a bid to restore populations of the endangered animal whose numbers have been decimated by poaching..© 2026 Bloomberg L.P..Sign up for your early morning brew of the BizNews Insider to keep you up to speed with the content that matters. The newsletter will land in your inbox every morning on weekdays. Register here.Support South Africa's bastion of independent journalism, offering balanced insights on investments, business, and the political economy, by joining BizNews Premium. Register here.If you prefer WhatsApp for updates, sign up to the BizNews channel here.

Buffett, Walton-backed African Parks focus on rhinos, expanding to 30 protected areas

Related Stories

SARB is set to hike interest rates on Iran war oil shock

John Matisonn: Is Ramaphosa really finished?

SA enemy M23 wants to sell DRC's critical minerals to Donald Trump

Should wildlife parks be fenced?: 60 African examples gives us an answer