World Land Trust

WLT’s approach has been to bring land into conservation in partnership with local organisations and groups. ERF’s funds will support WLT’s in-country partners work towards conservation success by securing land acquisitions in areas with species not found elsewhere in the world, developing habitat corridors for species to travel, feed, and rest, and also restoring degraded forests. Some partners will also conduct essential research on threatened species and new species not yet described by science.

The organisations and programmes that will benefit from ERF’s funding include:

Buenaventura Reserve, Fundación Jocotoco, Ecuador
The Buenaventura Reserve is the only reserve protecting the unique cloud forests of southwestern Ecuador. This project will expand Buenaventura Reserve by 450 hectares and enable the future large-scale restoration of around 2,000 hectares. Jocotoco are also testing forest restoration methods as part of its research to scale up future forest restoration initiatives.

Chimpanzee Corridor, ECOTRUST, Uganda
This is the first phase of an ambitious plan to conserve over 50,000 hectares of forest in Western Uganda. This work will protect the rich biodiversity of the Albertine Rift, which includes chimpanzees and some of Africa’s most threatened and endemic vertebrates. Funds will also enable the restoration of a precious native forest by planting around 50,000 native trees.

Gran Chaco, Guyra Paraguay, Paraguay
The Gran Chaco is one of South America’s largest forests. But more than a million hectares of Paraguayan Chaco have been devastated by industrial farming. Much of the Chaco is recognised as a Centre of Plant Diversity and the project area lies within the Gran Chaco UNESCO Man and Biosphere Reserve. Guyra Paraguay will work with farmers and agricultural communities to bring private land into coordinated conservation protection, creating habitat corridors to preserve the Paraguayan Chaco as a functioning ecosystem.

Coastal Forests, Tanzania Forest Conservation Group, Tanzania
This project will build on existing work to secure a wildlife corridor between Rondo Forest Reserve and the Nyerere National Park. This is a crucial habitat for the African Elephant, and the project will restore and protect migratory routes for this species. Community reserves will improve forest connectivity alongside benefits to livelihoods and community land tenure across the Rondo plateau, a mosaic of forest types threatened by ongoing deforestation and degradation.

WLT – The video below is a snapshot of their work in 2022.