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African Wildlife Foundation

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Early years

The African Wildlife Leadership Foundation (AWLF) was founded in 1961 by Russell E. Train, a wealthy judge, hunter, and member of the Washington Safari Club. Other founding members of the Safari Club were Nick Arundel, a former United States Marine Corps combat officer and journalist; Kermit Roosevelt Jr. of the Central Intelligence Agency; James S. Bugg, a businessman; and Maurice Stans, an accountant who would later serve as finance chairman of the Richard Nixon administration.

Train was worried that European park managers would be replaced by unqualified Africans in conservation works as African countries gained their independence. Twenty African countries became independent in 1960 and 1961. Train wrote,

"In Tanganyika alone, the government recently ordered Hundred percent (100%) Africanization of the game service by 1966! The replacement of European staff by untrained, unqualified men spells disaster for the game."

The first major grant of the AWLF was $47,000 to help found the College of African Wildlife Management at Mweka, Tanzania, in 1963. The college was organized by Bruce Kinloch, Chief Game Warden of Tanganyika, as a pioneer institution for the training of African wildlife managers. Funding for Mweka was also provided by the U.S. Agency for International Development and the Frankfurt Zoological Society, with facilities donated by the government of Tanganyika. By 2010, the college had trained over 4,500 wildlife managers from 28 African countries and 18 non-African countries.

In 1963, AWLF started a scholarship program to bring young Africans to American universities where they could study biology and wildlife management. Later that year, AWLF built a conservation education center at the entrance to Nairobi National Park. In 1967, the AWLF provided $50,000 to finance the construction of a research institute in Tanzania. In 1970, the AWF established a school for wildlife management in Garoua, Cameroon; giving instruction in French. During the 1970s and 1980s, the AWLF continued to finance students, and also assisted conservation projects, often giving supplies such as tents, vehicle spare parts, water pumps, and photographic equipment, rather than cash.

In 1969, the AWLF took the lead in a campaign supported by other conservation groups to protect rhinoceroses. In 1974, the foundation began a program to study cheetahs. In 1983, the AWF dropped "Leadership" from its name. Train was disappointed with the change, believing that the organization had lost sight of its original mandate. In his view, it had become just another conservation organization, giving funding to westerners to conduct research on animals. There is research such as Dian Fossey's work on gorillas and Cynthia Moss's work on elephants, which were both supported by the AWF.

In 1968, the annual budget was less than US$250,000. In 1988, the year of the AWF's campaign launch against elephant poaching, the foundation had a staff of six and an annual budget of $2 million. When the AWF turned 30 in 1991, the board of trustees remained dominated by prominent and wealthy Americans, many of whom served on other non-profit boards.

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