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.

The role of rangers:

Project Rhino supports more than 500 rangers across 32 reserves as they work to protect from poaching the second largest rhino population in Africa. The habitats these rangers patrol are diverse and support a wide range of species, including rhino, elephant, lion, leopard, cheetah, buffalo, all plains species and pangolin. K9 teams are on 24-hour standby, and key activities include tracking, detection, fence patrol, and attending to roadblocks with local police and government. 

How your donation will help:

Additional funding will go to supporting Project Rhino K9 unit and Zapwing unit, as well as some ranger equipment, such as clothing and boots. We will also target to support ranger families and other community members impacted by COVID-19 around reserves, with food parcels and fortified porridge, using our existing platform of Feeding the Wildlife Communities.

We realise that a single fund cannot possibly hope to resolve all issues during this time and will therefore spread the fund as far as possible. Keeping our K9 unit operational and Zapwing patrols in the air provide invaluable support to all rangers in our reserves.

Effects of the pandemic:

Due to the COVID-19 outbreak, all our major fundraising campaigns have come to a dead halt. Until we have the ability to host Project Rhino fundraising events and campaigns— which typically cover at least 75% of Project Rhino’s operating budget annually—we will be under immense financial constraints to keep our projects running. Based on existing capacities on the ground, we continue supporting all 32 reserves covered by Project Rhino. COVID-19 has also halted all tourism activities in our partner reserves, which reduces traffic and in some instances may mean the complete closure of reserves if this scenario continues.

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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.