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A Lasting Legacy
The Friedkin Conservation Fund Tanzania is committed to safeguarding its immense and unique wilderness heritage. FCF was created to preserve one of Tanzania’s last unspoiled natural areas and its diverse wildlife population. FCF has taken on the responsibility of preserving protected wildlife areas that are crucial to the greater Serengeti ecosystem’s survival. Equally important as protecting and saving these last waste plains of wilderness is ensuring that communities living along these unfenced borders benefit from an active and committed wildlife conservation plan.
The Maswa Game Reserve is a critical natural habitat for black rhino populations and, through increased protection as a result of collaboration between the government and private stakeholders, their numbers have been gradually increasing.
Established by the Tanzanian government in the 1990’s, the Serengeti Rhino Repatriation Project facilitates this collaboration with the goal of protecting and boosting rhino populations. The project is seen as a conservation success story, with black rhino populations rising across the Serengeti ecosystem.
Together with the Grumeti Fund and the Frankfurt Zoological Society, the Friedkin Conservation Fund Tanzania has supported the Tanzanian government in protecting these critically endangered animals by providing logistical and operations support to aid its rhino horn micro-chipping project. These microchips allow for the tracking and monitoring of the rhino populations. Most of the poaching in Mwiba and Maswa is commercial bush-meat and timber poaching, FCFT works in collaboration with the Tanzania Wildlife Authority to ensure that as far as possible, poaching is pre-empted and can be stopped before these incidents occur. The anti-poaching units conduct joint patrols with TAWA to ensure that illegal activities are stopped.
In addition, there is a thriving beekeeping project, this has been a recently launched extensive initiative with significant conservation and community-engagement value, combining income generation, education and bio-diversity preservation.
Beekeeping has been identified as a powerful way to tackle poverty at a grassroots level and mitigate Human wildlife conflict through the installation of beeline fences that keep elephants away from farmers’ crops, as well as provide sustainable income-generating social enterprises centred around beekeeping, its products, and by-products.
In August 2022, we initiated a pilot beekeeping project with 30 beehives at Legendary Lodge in Arusha. This project was later extended to Makao Village near Mwiba, establishing a total of 17 beekeeping groups. Our ultimate goal is to continue to grow the number of beehives on the region and encourage income generation around honey.
The FCF’s ongoing commitments for 2023 and the future is to work to increase children’s school attendance in order to help them finish school.
Continued commitment to protect and preserve the areas the FCF work in remains a priority for the future and a continued commitment to work closely within the Serengeti ecosystem, with the partners and stakeholders for the greater benefit and protection of the fauna and flora of this exceptional wilderness.
Your donations are important to ensure the community and conservation projects and initiatives can be continued as the challenges are constant and real.
