PROJECTS AND GRANTEES
WildiZe provides grants to on-the-ground conservation, community, and education projects and organizations in Africa. Below are profiles of some of the projects and groups we support.
“I would personally like to thank the two sponsors of this book. Firstly Eli Weiss and the WildiZe Foundation . . . Without their very generous support, this book would not have been published.” Hapenga M. Kabeta, Director General, Zambia Wildlife Authority, Foreword to Important Bird Areas in Zambia.
Akashinga and IAPF
WildiZe supports the International Anti-Poaching Foundation (IAPF.org). Founded by Damien Mander in Zimbabwe, IAPF provides security for ecosystems outside protected zones or National Parks, particularly endangered rhino populations. Akashinga, an all-female antipoaching unit, is a great example of IAPF’s effective conservation work and of women’s empowerment in Africa.
Walking Thunder
WildiZe supports award-winning filmmakers Cyril Christo and Marie Wilkinson, who have traveled extensively with their son Lysander capturing scenes from the vanishing natural world for their film about the fascinating yet tragic plight of Africa’s elephants. Walking Thunder is the family’s beautiful, poetic, and urgent film weaving their personal journey with interviews and awe-inspiring stories and imagery. The result is an extraordinary look at the world Lysander is inheriting; one beset by climate change and poaching, in which some of its most majestic creatures are threatened with extinction. Walking Thunder shows at once both a world at peril as well as the dreams and resilient hope of a new generation. More at https://
Caracal Center for Conservation of African Resources,
Chobe Research Institute
WildiZe supports the efforts of the Chobe Research Institute, which investigates the linkages between human health and the environment in Northern Botswana, explicitly engaging environmental change and wildlife community dynamics as they occur around the only water source in the region – the Chobe River. The project integrates drivers of infectious disease from human behavior to water quality dynamics, studying the coupled dynamics of human-dryland river systems: linkages and feedbacks between human and environmental drivers of water quality and human health. More information is available at https://www.caracal.info/ecosystem-health-in-chobe
Wild Daze
WildiZe supports the film Wild Daze. Phyllis Stuart’s compelling documentary, Wild Daze, reveals an unvarnished truth about the battle between our desire to control nature and our need to save the wild. Wild Daze wades audiences gently through Africa’s murky and complex corruption to see how human activity takes a huge toll on the wild. Part nature documentary, part transnational crime journalism, Wild Daze breaks hearts, engages and amazes, educates and alarms. More at https://www.wilddazethemovie.com.
Tsavo Elephant Research
WildiZe supports surveys in the Tsavo Conservation Area (TCA) to provide greater understanding of the local elephant population and identify gaps in ongoing conservation projects and community programs needing future support, in order to compliment the overall TCA management goals and objectives. WildiZe also supports the re-wilding of elephant orphans and education programs designed to inspire people to care for the local elephant population.
