GCF is a voice for giraffe throughout Africa
Our work spans the whole gamut of giraffe conservation efforts and our involvement ranges from project implementation to providing direct and indirect technical support to partners, from conservation monitoring to hands-on conservation action, from capacity building and education to returning giraffe to their rightful homes.
As a network organization, the Giraffe Conservation Foundation often acts as a catalyst. There is no intention of working in isolation or doing everything on our own; instead, we aim to inspire partners to support giraffe conservation. As threats vary greatly between giraffe populations and the countries they live in, there is no blueprint for saving giraffe. Conservation actions and the overall approach must be adapted to each country, its culture and the specifics of individual giraffe populations and their habitats.
Our involvement throughout the continent can be summarized into the following conservation actions:
Action Plan / Strategy
GCF works closely with governments, NGOs, communities, and academic partners throughout Africa to secure a sustainable future for all giraffe populations in the wild. Giraffe currently occur in 21 countries with fragmented ranges in West, Central, Eastern and Southern Africa. Giraffe face different threats throughout their range and conservation approaches need to be tailored to local needs and requirements. GCF supports numerous African giraffe range States in the development of National Giraffe Conservation Strategies and Action Plans by providing technical and financial support. These strategies and action plans provide the necessary framework to address and carry out targeted conservation efforts for giraffe on a national or regional level.
Illegal Trade Prevention
In several countries we partner with local organizations, which have strong networks and community outreach, to provide anti-poaching and de-snaring support, surveillance monitoring, as well as direct and covert actions to assess and prevent illegal wildlife trade. Such efforts are targeted and often localized for effective results.
Capacity Building, Education & Community Engagement (Twiga Wetu)
Supporting and investing in people and communities who share their living space with giraffe is key to the long-term success of giraffe conservation. Towards this goal, all our capacity building, education and community-based programmes are united under the umbrella of our Twiga Wetu (Swahili for ‘Our Giraffe’) initiative. Twiga Wetu is a holistic, collaborative and community-driven approach to conservation. As giraffe range is not limited to national parks and government-protected areas, large giraffe populations live amongst or next to people in many African countries. Through Twiga Wetu, we employ a country- or site-specific approach, adapting experience and knowledge gained from both GCF’s and our partners’ programmes throughout Africa. At every opportunity we promote and support innovative community involvement in the conservation of giraffe. For each programme under our Twiga Wetu initiative, GCF collaborates with local (and often international) conservation partners who have a strong track record of community conservation. Ultimately, giraffe can only be saved in Africa – by the people who share their living space with these iconic animals.
Conservation Health
Veterinarians are increasingly gaining in importance in conservation efforts throughout Africa and GCF’s Conservation Health initiative aims to address knowledge gaps in giraffe conservation. We are tackling this from a veterinary science and conservation medicine perspective to provide African veterinarians with more hands-on wildlife experience. Our Giraffe Conservation Health initiative incorporates a wide range of actions, including evaluating the best field immobilization practices for giraffe, addressing disease threats and health issues in wild giraffe populations, enhancing capacity building for the next generation of Africa’s wildlife veterinarians, using conservation genetics to assess giraffe health, and assisting in the development of new technology for satellite tracking. We are committed to sharing our experience and expertise on a wider platform, including open access data and publications through key collaborations.
Field Resources
For field teams to be successful, they need to be appropriately equipped. In support of giraffe conservation monitoring and analysis throughout most countries, GCF has provided a range of much-needed field and technical equipment such as cameras, GPS satellite tags, hand-held GPS units, IT equipment, uniforms, capture equipment including field chariots, immobilization drugs, darting equipment and much more.
Survey Support
We can only conserve what we know; therefore, gaining a better understanding of giraffe numbers, trends and distribution is critical. GCF was the first organization to bring all giraffe data and survey results together. Some giraffe population numbers single handedly doubled overnight, simply by applying better counting methods or collating the data in an organized manner. As GCF has managed to generate increased interest in giraffe, they are more often included in regular game counts or larger counting efforts (e.g. the Great Elephant Count) with increasing amount of data shared to help assess their status. Furthermore, the GCF team conducts surveys of key giraffe populations throughout the continent, and as part of ongoing capacity building and field support, we regularly train African conservationists including government staff, rangers, conservancy members and eco-guards in effective giraffe monitoring and continue to provide valuable funding support to their surveys and monitoring initiatives. Collaboratively we monitor more than 100 populations across all four species, and more than 20,000 individual giraffe.
Technical Support
As the experts in all aspects of giraffe conservation in the wild, GCF provides technical support and expert advice to a range of giraffe programmes, governments, universities and organizations on the African continent. As an organization, we play an important role in supporting giraffe conservation and management initiatives in all giraffe range countries. For 15 years, GCF has continued to be involved in some shape or form in providing technical support and expert advice in all giraffe range states in Africa.
Translocation
Conservation translocations are an impactful tool in conservation and can be highly beneficial for (re-)establishing new or bolstering small existing giraffe populations. They often are truly collaborative efforts and GCF is at the forefront of giraffe translocations in many parts of Africa. Translocations bring giraffe into areas where they have gone locally extinct, they only occur in low numbers or to increase their range. Together with governments, NGOs and other partners, GCF has successfully translocated giraffe in several giraffe range countries. In addition to pure conservation aims, these translocations can support tourism and sustainable development efforts, as well as local communities. To date, our collaborative conservation translocation programme has increased and/or augmented over 7 million acres of giraffe habitat throughout Africa.
Twiga Tracker
GCF’s Twiga Tracker initiative is the largest GPS satellite tracking study ever conducted on giraffe. Over the past 15 years a growing network of research partners, spearheaded by GCF, has deployed over 500 specially designed GPS satellite units on all four species of giraffe in Africa. The data collected from these studies has been instrumental in guiding giraffe conservation strategies throughout their range by providing a better understanding of their needs, their movements, and preferred habitat. The Twiga Tracker initiative is also critical in post-translocation monitoring to ensure the giraffe settle in, how they move in their new environment, and most importantly, if they are still alive. Tracker design remains an important part of this initiative, and we work with several specialist suppliers while designs continue to evolve over the past few decades from collars, to head harnesses, to ossicone units, and now tail and ear tags. Ultimately, the data gathered and lessons learned from our Twiga Tracker initiative allows us and our partners to better save giraffe in the wild.
Vehicle Support
In a remote field situation, a reliable vehicle can be the most important conservation tool and ultimately make the difference between life and death. Providing a reliable vehicle such as a 4×4 field vehicle, a translocation truck or a field chariot, supporting vehicle maintenance, insurance and fuel supplies makes all the difference for giraffe conservation. At times, this support is the deciding factor in whether or not monitoring, surveys, translocations, or veterinary interventions can take place.
