Gonarezhou National Park Project (Zimbabwe)

Photo credit: Mike Beckner

The Wyss Foundation is providing support to the Gonarezhou Conservation Trust to ensure that the 1.3 million acre Gonarezhou National Park in Zimbabwe is managed to safeguard the park’s diverse natural values, including one of the highest densities of African elephants in the world. Between 10,000 and 12,000 elephants are estimated to live in the Gonarezhou National Park, but the demand for ivory is driving a poaching crisis in many national parks in Zimbabwe and elsewhere in Africa, putting wildlife populations at risk. Over the past decade, poaching has contributed to an estimated 20 percent decline in African elephant populations. This grant to the Gonarezhou Conservation Trust, a partnership between the Zimbabwe Parks and Wildlife Management Authority and the Frankfurt Zoological Society, provides resources to bolster anti-poaching efforts and enables the park to ultimately provide long-term economic benefits to local communities.

This project protects the park’s elephant population and other wildlife and provides economic stability to local people in an increasingly unstable period across Zimbabwe. In May 2021, the Wyss Foundation and the German government’s Legacy Landscapes Fund announced a fifteen year funding partnership to ensure that this irreplaceable landscape will have multi-year guaranteed funding, ensuring its long term management. In spring 2021, the Wyss Foundation provided a $1 million grant (its fifth annual grant to the project) to Gonarezhou Conservation Trust to support this work.