African Bush Camps and the African Bush Camps Foundation operate in landscapes in Africa’s heartland across Botswana, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. We offer our guests the opportunity to visit and be inspired by the bounty and beauty of these natural areas. As such, we have the responsibility to ensure that these places thrive.
Each of the countries where we operate has dedicated significant areas of land to conservation and has large populations of wildlife. However, they are increasingly under threat due to loss of habitat, fragmentation of connectivity between conservation areas, degradation of ecosystems, human encroachment, and illegal activities such as poaching. In addition, rural communities living in or along the boundaries of conservation areas face many challenges, including poverty and unemployment. They lack quality education, health care, and sustainable economic opportunities. As a result, they rely on and often exploit natural resources for their livelihoods, resulting in human-wildlife conflict, habitat degradation, and illegal hunting.
In 2023, we undertook a strategic review of the African Bush Camps Foundation to ensure that we are correctly positioned to help address the above-mentioned challenges in the landscapes and communities where we operate.
Sharing and Conserving Africa, Together
Our Vision 2030 is to support a thriving natural landscape that connects all ABC camps and lodges, thereby enabling functioning ecosystems for wildlife, whilst empowering local communities. To achieve this, ABCF focuses on two core areas: Conservation and Community. Each of these focus areas has three pillars.
Conservation focuses on securing, enhancing, and rewilding new conservation areas and corridors (Expand), supporting existing conservation areas and organisations (Protect), and facilitating co-existence between communities and wildlife (Co-Exist).
Community focuses on supporting local schools, staff, and learners (Educate), empowering and up-skilling local community members and enterprises (Empower), and supporting healthcare facilities and staff (Health).
While future-focused, our vision allows us to continue the work that we had already started, whilst expanding our reach and ability to have a greater positive impact. We have furthermore developed a theory of change to guide our actions and projects, ensuring that we always work towards our desired impact – healthy, connected landscapes and thriving local communities and economies – in a structured and logical manner.
Additionally, we introduced a monitoring and evaluation system. When we select a project under any of our focus areas and pillars, we identify the associated objectives and corresponding impact metrics, data points, and stories of change that we need to measure, track, and monitor to show that we are moving towards our goals over time.
Partnering with Local Communities and Stakeholders
Proper planning and effective partnerships are paramount to realizing our vision. We aim to amplify impact through collaboration, both with other organisations as well as with local communities. We work with communities to identify needs, skills, and resources and forge meaningful partnerships amongst stakeholders to deliver results. This creates opportunities to empower local communities, whilst also promoting ownership of projects and conservation of the environment.
A wild path across Africa’s heartlands
We imagine a landscape where an elephant (or a lion or wild dog) could walk, at least in theory, all the way across Botswana, Zambia, and Zimbabwe, visiting each of the ABC camps and lodges on its journey – a ‘wild path’ across Africa’s heartland where wildlife and ecosystems can thrive.
We invite you to visit and partner with us as we share and conserve Africa, together.
