The Wilderness Foundation
The Wilderness Foundation (South Africa), founded in 1972, protects, and sustains African wilderness and wild lands through holistic and integrated conservation, social and education programmes.
The Wilderness Foundation has been a pioneer in using wilderness as a positive force for social change in South Africa. To date, we have taken over one hundred thousand political, business and community leaders, as well as historically disadvantaged youth, through our programmes, which allow participants to experience wild nature.
Our work in wilderness heals and sustains the human psyche and we have been leaders in the field of creating an understanding of the link between ecosystem health and human well-being.
Our work is concentrated in four main areas:
Among many programmes, WF–SA has initiated and currently runs:
Umzi wethu, the first conservation programme to directly address the HIV/AIDS crisis by training and mentoring orphans and vulnerable children for a sustainable role in the nature tourism industry and elsewhere.
Opinion Leaders' Trails, which reach out to national parliamentarians and other leaders and give them a personal and direct experience of wilderness, thereby alerting policy makers to the indisputable fact that humanity is reliant on the ecosystem services provided by healthy wild lands.
Imbewu, a national environmental and cultural awareness programme among emerging young previously disadvantaged community leaders. Retired black game rangers (elders) facilitate the wilderness experience, in the storytelling modality of indigenous culture.
Pride, an urban-linked programme introducing black township youth leaders to their nearest wild areas and training them as guides to peer mentor other youth.
Baviaanskloof Mega Wilderness Reserve, a project creating one of the largest wilderness and wild land areas in South Africa through the consolidation and collaborative management of 500,000 hectares of land owned by government and the private sector in the Eastern Cape.
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