About the Wildlife Ranger Challenge: 

COVID-19 has brought tourism revenue to a halt across Africa, threatening the important work and livelihoods of the rangers who protect iconic African wildlife such as elephants, pangolins, rhinos, lions, and more. Ranger teams are now uniting around the Wildlife Ranger Challenge, a running race with one goal: to raise money to support thousands of their fellow rangers. Now is the time to go the extra mile—it’s time to race to support our rangers. Every dollar donated will be matched by the Scheinberg Relief Fund, doubling your generous contribution.

Your contribution will help support 28 rangers and an estimated 364 livelihoods in and around the Makame Wildlife Management Area in Tanzania.

The role of rangers:

With over 900,000 acres of bush to protect, Makame—the largest community conservation area in Tanzania—has a unique approach to protection.The area’s 28 rangers are from and employed by the local community, which provides them an opportunity to profit by protecting their own forests. These community-based rangers in turn provide information on poachers entering from outside the area. Since the establishment of a 14-member reaction unit, rangers have reduced poaching by over 80%.

How your donation will help:

Makame is unique in that its business model is not primarily tourism-based. Makame’s extensive wooded landscape–in addition to serving as a habitat for wildlife such as elephants, lions, wild dogs, leopards, oryx, and aardwolves–is providing communities with an opportunity to earn a profit by protecting their forests. 

The pandemic is threatening this opportunity, however, putting livelihoods and land at risk. Salaries have been secured for only 14 rangers; the remaining 14 will be laid off as of the end of July until funding resumes. Any donations will go toward paying these rangers half their salary per month while they will remain in their villages on half pay and continue to support intelligence efforts in the village, collect data about any human-wildlife conflict and have a presence on behalf of the wildlife management area.

The more immediate challenge, however, is to enable protection to continue. This will require funding for food rations, fuel and maintenance of patrol vehicles, informer rewards, and ranger bonuses.

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Tusk is registered with JustGiving in the UK (or GoFundMe.com in the USA). Our online fundraising sites allow you to create a sponsorship form with easy access for your supporters, knowing their money is going directly to Tusk. UK tax-paying donors can enhance their contribution by agreeing to Gift Aid their sponsorship (for every £10 you raise, Tusk will receive another £2.50 from the Government provided you are a UK taxpayer). US supporters wishing to make a tax deductible donation can do so via GoFundMe.com

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