About Friends of Conservation

FOC's primary aim is to conserve wildlife and the environment. It works with local communities to identify and implement sustainable ways of managing local resources.

Originally the charity's work involved protecting animals such as black rhino and elephants, whose populations had been decimated by the 1970s. This has now developed and in Kenya, for example, FOC has initiated forestry projects to replace woodland cut down for fuel and to produce alternative sources of firewood.

Community-based projects around the world have received funding and FOC is seeking to work with new partners abroad.

FOC supports research, which has both immediate and long-term benefits for conservation management and its scientific advisors identify suitable opportunities. Its schools education programme is designed to encourage children's understanding of the sensitive balance of the natural world.

For several years FOC has worked with UK tour operators to encourage tourists and the travel industry to respect fragile ecosystems and endangered species. FOC produces the practical and informative Traveller's Code distributed to tourists by its supporters.

Our history

FOC was founded in 1982, initially to preserve the decimated populations of black rhino and elephants in East Africa. Since that time FOC's community based conservation programmes have played a prominent role in the protection of endangered species.

It was registered as a charity in the UK in 1988 and now has offices in Illinois, USA and Nairobi, Kenya. Since 1997 FOC has supported community based conservation projects around the world. This expansion includes a desire to build effective conservation programmes with partners abroad.

In recent years it has supported projects in Romania, Spain, Brazil, Patagonia, Zimbabwe, Uganda and the South Atlantic.