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Great Plains Foundation Great Plains Foundation is project and species focused to rehabilitate, enhance and save wildlife. We lose five elephants an hour across Africa.

Statement by the Chairman, Dereck Joubert
“Let there be no mistake, we are in the midst of the Battle for Africa right now. Every nine hours another rhino is killed in South Africa alone. In the last 50 years we have managed to lose 95% of our lions and leopards. At this rate, we can expect extinctions of lions in the next 10 to 15 years. As Hilary Clinton so carefully pointed out in a speech last year, the bushmeat and illegal animal trade now rivals the drug trade in its scale, garnering $27 billion in trade a year. And yet, if we take the initiative right now and urgently, we can stop this from being a global disaster. We founded the Big Cats Initiative with National Geographic specifically to focus attention, funding and action on lions, cheetah and leopards in Africa, and that is progressing well. There are a lot of dedicated and smart people with whom we are engaging to tackle a range of action points with 43 projects in 18 countries. Arguably, the most pressing issue for African wildlife is poaching. It goes to follow that if we are strategically acquiring large pieces of land to conserve then we also need to secure that land and its wildlife against poaching. The greatest need now, is what I call “The Battle for Africa,” and it will ultimately involve three species: lions, rhinos, and elephants. If we save those we have a hope. And if we don’t, everything else will go. We’re not going to let that happen on our watch. Many thanks,
Dereck Joubert

Leopards carry an undeniable mystique, an aura of mystery that drifts with them like a breeze. Resilient and adaptable, ...
10/13/2026

Leopards carry an undeniable mystique, an aura of mystery that drifts with them like a breeze. Resilient and adaptable, they seem to live in the spaces between worlds: slinking beside watercourses, resting in the treetops, skulking along forest edges and floodplains, and sometimes slipping across human borders. But that adaptability can be their downfall. When leopards move into human-dominated landscapes, their elusive nature is shattered by inadvertent encounters with people. Protecting predators like leopards means protecting connected landscapes large enough for the wild to remain truly wild. The Big Cats Initiative, run by Great Plains Foundation, is committed to habitat protection, wildlife monitoring, anti-poaching support and coexistence initiatives that give big cats a fighting chance. Leopards are linchpins on which entire ecosystems depend. Protecting them means safeguarding the landscapes we all rely on.

More here: www.greatplainsfoundation.com

There are rare moments in nature when the interplay of species and landscape aligns so perfectly that it seems unreal. T...
10/06/2026

There are rare moments in nature when the interplay of species and landscape aligns so perfectly that it seems unreal. This lioness drifted slowly through a field of grass, each strand lit golden by the rising sun. As she moved, her form sometimes slipped from view, swallowed by the glistening gold. Moments like this remind us how these cats are meant to live, and how they deserve to live: in wide open spaces, safe from persecution and conflict. We created the Big Cats Initiative in 2009 with that dream in mind. Now run by Great Plains Foundation , the initiative supports coexistence programmes, predator monitoring, landscape protection, and partnerships reducing human-wildlife conflict. When lions disappear, something much bigger disappears with them. We cannot let that happen.

More here: https://greatplainsfoundation.com/big-cats-initiative/

Once abundant across the African continent, rhinos have been pushed by human greed into a few fragmented pockets of thei...
10/02/2026

Once abundant across the African continent, rhinos have been pushed by human greed into a few fragmented pockets of their former range. This mom, her horn only partially regrown after it was removed by conservationists for her own safety, led her calf across a deep channel. The youngster mirrored her every move, learning with every step. Poaching has left many calves without the guidance of their mothers, and that is what makes moments like this so precious. But the situation is far from hopeless.

This image comes from Blood Moon, a book Dereck Joubert and I published to tell the story of an extraordinary effort to rescue rhinos from high-poaching zones and relocate them to safer landscapes. It involved military personnel, planes, helicopters and private-sector gunboats, all in the name of giving these iconic animals a fighting chance.

Follow Great Plains Foundation to find out more about the critical conservation work that helps safeguard rhinos and other threatened species.

09/22/2026

"Where some see opportunity and greed and ignorance, others see a need to change destiny – to bring life."

Rhinos have walked this continent for millions of years, shaping the landscapes they move through and the ecosystems that depend on them. Today, they're down to a fraction of their former numbers, and every individual left matters. Great Plains Foundation's monitoring teams track rhino movements and health across our protected landscapes, working to keep populations safe. Through our rewildling initiatives, we have translocated rhinos to secure, well-managed habitats, rebuilding populations in places they once vanished from. This is what it takes to keep a species on the map. This World Rhino Day, we're marking the progress made and the work still ahead. Every rhino protected and every translocation completed is a step back from the edge for this species.

Months of early starts. Sore legs. Long days on patrol followed by tough training sessions. All of it has been building ...
09/19/2026

Months of early starts. Sore legs. Long days on patrol followed by tough training sessions. All of it has been building to this. Today, our Great Plains Foundation ranger teams from Botswana and Zimbabwe — joined by others from across the continent — take on a gruelling 21km run for the 2026 Wildlife Ranger Challenge. It's a physical test, but it's really about something bigger: proving, once again, that these rangers will go the distance for the species and spaces they protect. Today, they run for Africa's wildlife.

09/18/2026

Tomorrow's the day. After months of early mornings, sore legs, and relentless training, our Wildlife Ranger Challenge teams from Botswana and Zimbabwe — alongside ranger teams from across Africa — lace up for a 21km half marathon. These are the men and women who patrol the frontlines of conservation every single day, and tomorrow they're pushing their bodies as hard as they push for the wildlife and wild spaces they protect. Every kilometre they run is a statement: this work matters, and it's worth fighting for.

09/16/2026

Before wildlife rangers can protect a landscape, they have to know it completely, every bird call, every track, every tree that needs help to survive another dry season. That knowledge doesn't come from a classroom. It's built out there in the field. On 19 September, the same rangers who do this work every day will run a half marathon for the Wildlife Ranger Challenge, raising vital funds for the teams keeping Africa's wild spaces monitored and protected.

Stand behind them: https://greatplainsfoundation.com/stand-with-our-wildlife-rangers-in-the-2026-wildlife-ranger-challenge/

There is nothing quite like standing beside a darted rhino, watching a team of rangers work with urgency and care to bri...
09/16/2026

There is nothing quite like standing beside a darted rhino, watching a team of rangers work with urgency and care to bring one of these giants safely under control. This relocation, part of our Rhinos Without Borders initiative with Great Plains Foundation moved threatened rhinos to safer ground. This is the unglamorous side of conservation: ropes, heavy lifting, sweat, and split-second coordination, all in service of protecting a species that's senselessly become a victim of human greed. Every hand on that animal belongs to someone who has chosen, again and again, to show up for a species that cannot ask for help.

Visit greatplainsfoundation.com to get involved.

09/15/2026

Every rhino calf born is a sign of hope, a sign that the conservation projects we oversee are working, a sign that there's a brighter future on the horizon for these threatened animals – one small step at a time. Our rhino conservation efforts are built on exactly that belief: that individual animals, given the protection they deserve, can shift the survival odds for an entire species. Through out rhino monitoring and protection initiatives, each animal is given room to breed, roam, and rebuild a population from the ground up. Every calf born is proof the strategy is working.

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