Could you tell us about the work done by yourself and the Cheetah Conservation Fund?
I founded Cheetah Conservation Fund (CCF) in 1990 to help save the wild cheetah. Cheetahs used to thrive in numbers of over 100,000, over a range that stretched across most of Africa and into Asia; today there are less than 7,500 remaining, occupying a mere fraction of their natural range. In Namibia, where I chose to base our organisation, conflict between farmers and cheetahs wiped out thousands of the animals during the 1970s and 1980s. I relocated to Namibia from the U.S. in 1991 because I wanted to stop the conflict and figure out a way for people and cheetahs to coexist, to restore the natural balance. I realised that if I didn’t do something, the cheetah would soon be gone, as their numbers would fall so low there would be no bringing them back. My early collaborated research revealed that cheetahs suffer from low genetic diversity, which makes them vulnerable to disease and creates reproductive abnormalities, exacerbating an already problematic situation. The cheetah is threatened by conflict, but also by habitat loss, loss of prey, and to a somewhat lesser degree, the illegal wildlife trade. Addressing the cheetah’s plight requires unravelling a host of social, economic and environmental issues. There is no simple fix for the problem. I realised this during my early in situ research of the cheetah in Namibia, which began in the late 1970s, but it didn’t really hit home until I was living in Namibia. I met with farmers and interviewed them about their farms and livestock management systems as well as about the cheetah. They thought of cheetahs as worthless vermin, predators that killed their goats and sheep and threatened their livelihoods. I suspected this was not the case, but no one had ever done research on the cheetah to find out their behaviour, and the truth.
From this experience, I realised that people needed to have a better understanding of the cheetah's biology, ecology, and interactions with wildlife and livestock. This information would be essential to conserving the cheetah in the wild. I developed a strategy for CCF, a three-pronged approach of research, conservation and education, beginning with long-term studies to understand the factors affecting cheetah survival. For the past two-and-a-half decades, myself, along with a small staff of CCF researchers, interns and volunteers, have been studying the wild cheetah and their fundamental ecosystems, and our data is used to develop conservation policies and education programs. We administer training and education programs for Namibian farmers and communities, called Future Farmers of Africa (FFA), to develop better livelihoods. We raise awareness, communicate, and educate people about the cheetah all over the world. CCF has built a proven record of creating successful, innovative collaborations between environmentalists and local communities that offer a solution to the dilemma that so often thwarts species conservation efforts: how do we motivate humans to view wildlife as an asset to their future as opposed to being a roadblock? CCF’s approach to conservation uses scientific data to educate communities and design programs that make conservation not just a moral imperative but a practical opportunity. Most importantly, CCF puts these solutions into action. CCF creates working programs with measurable results.