Our chapter as Africa Foundation has spanned a 32-year journey of collaboration with &Beyond as their non-profit community and conservation development partner, and our existing areas of operation mirror their footprint across Africa.
The July 2024 transition from Africa Foundation to Wild Impact marks a new era in our partnership as we expand our operation to work side-by-side across Africa, Asia and South America to scale our shared impact vision.
Several name options were explored, but simply didn’t settle. A critical aspect was that the positioning of the new name needed to be neutral and hold relevance for donors in this three-continent space of Africa, Asia and South America.
Why not simply &Beyond Foundation? Because, while approximately 25% of the funding that we raise comes from &Beyond and its guests and shareholders, the balance is money funded from other organisations that are not vested in &Beyond.
A late-night discussion with Joss Kent, &Beyond Executive Chairman & CEO, in which we revisited all the key questions of who we are, where we are, what we have done through community and conservation interventions, and why we’re doing what we’re doing, crystalised that who we are as a partnership is defined by those precious wilderness areas we have worked in. And that our rationale—our reason for existence, our partnership, our vision—is about underwriting the long-term conservation of the Earth’s wild places, through best business and not-for-profit practices.
The roots of this focus run deep. Stepping back 33 years to the founding days of &Beyond Phinda Private Game Reserve, when a group of mavericks believed that there was a missed opportunity in the normal conservation and development model of that time. Their vision was that a successful luxury ecotourism company could draw wealth and investment into remote areas and use that wealth and investment to catalyse the conservation of those landscapes and seascapes for the benefit of land, wildlife and the surrounding rural communities.
And this is exactly what the &Beyond impact model has done: it has drawn investment into areas that would otherwise not have been invested in and has inspired a multitude of other businesses to do the same.
The critical importance of landscapes and seascapes for humankind to survive is underlined by powerful global movements like the ’30 x 30’: a conservation commitment to conserve 30% of the world’s terrestrial, inland water and marine habitat by 2030. The core message is that if we don’t change what we do now, we’re not going to have a planet to live on.
In the last 100 years, our human population on this planet has quadrupled from 2 to 8 billion. Throw climate change on top of that and the biodiversity crisis referred to as the sixth mass extinction, driven by human activity, where we are losing thousands of species. We’ve done so much damage to our river systems, ocean systems and landscapes that it’s starting to impact our ability to survive.
Our long-term deep impact/deep partnership approach with both communities and stakeholders differentiates us from pretty much every other non-profit organisation. We are anchored in the landscapes in which we operate alongside &Beyond by infrastructure—brick and mortar in some shape or form, such as a school or a clinic—that is bonded with our long-term financial commitment to develop it which plays out over decades.
None of this will change moving forward; our trusted methodology of respectful engagement with our partner communities will continue to anchor our work and inform all our activities.
But now, we will apply a systematic approach that we refer to as our Theory of Change; a framework structured around four key outcomes:
Wild Impact is in many respects more than a new name and brand for Africa Foundation. It is a reflection of where we have come from, and where we are going in partnership with &Beyond.
The long-term survival of the wild landscapes and seascapes that we work within will depend on our partner communities who are custodians of these spaces.
The ultimate outcome of our collective journey will be a future that finds these spaces resilient, vibrant and healthy, and custodian communities actively advocating for their conservation and protection for generations to come.
As one of the first South Africans to undertake a PhD in the field, Andrew has a deep commitment to community-based conservation. Working with communities around the Kruger National Park in 1994 and 1995, he helped shape a framework that would evolve into the National Park’s Social Ecology unit.
Andrew moved to St Lucia in 1995, working with Ezemvelo KZN Wildlife and the communities around the then Greater St Lucia Wetland Park. This time was instrumental in shaping his perspectives on how and why a community-based approach to conservation was critical.
In 2000, Andrew joined the Wildlands Trust as its first CEO. Facilitating its merger with the KZN Conservation Trusts, he led the development of this small local NGO into one of South Africa’s largest environmental NPO, with annual funds raised of ZAR 160m and almost 4 000 team members.
During 2020 Andrew worked with the University of Cambridge’s Institute for Sustainability Leadership (CISL) as a programme contributor and Senior Associate, deepening his understanding of the sustainability pressures including global warming, population growth and resource consumption. Andrew is also a trustee of the European-based Global Nature Fund (GNF).
He joined Wild Impact (then Africa Foundation) as CEO in 2020.
Wild Impact is a Public Benefit Organisation registered in South Africa. Reg. No.: 930002115