The biodiversity in the Albertine Rift is under greater threat now than ever before due to global economic trends, conflicts and other political and social situations. Over the last ten years we witnessed recognition of this important biodiversity in this region and at the same time, trends across Africa include increasing pressure to justify the existence of protected areas financially, mainly through eco-tourism, thus making financial sustainability key to long term ecological sustainability. Given the inevitable variations in cash flow due to the economic and political environment, alternative sources of funds to tourism must be found to enable parks to survive periods of shortfalls and emergencies.

It has been really tough for WildlifeDirect to cope with the needs and expand and support conservation bloggers due to the inevitable financial crunch. However, During our board meeting yesterday I had the pleasure of announcing that WildlifeDirect has just won a two year grant from the MacArthur Foundation to help us to expand and better support bloggers in a very special part of Africa.
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The Albertine Rift is the western arm of the Great Rift Valley and it passes through eight countries, Sudan, Rwanda, Burundi, DR Congo, Uganda, Tanzania and Zambia. This is an area of Africa is one of the most important areas biologically due to the species richness, indeed many new species have been discovered in recent years, and it is also home to many endemic species like the mountain gorillas – speices that occur nowhere else on earth.

Through this grant we will be able to expand our blog network into new countries and help African conservationists who are working hard with virtually no funding or recognition. This funding should help to raise awareness and funding  to secure the spectacular heritage of this region.

This exciting project will involve identifying new projects and training new field based bloggers working in various types of projects that secure biodviersity in this ecologically unique region.