The African Wildlife Consultative Forum (AWCF) will be held in Arusha, Tanzania, from November 13-17, 2017. The meeting marks the 15th meeting of African governments, professional hunting associations, and wildlife management experts from all over the world.
This year’s AWCF will feature an African lion and leopard symposium, headlined by the SCI Foundation-sponsored Tanzania Lion Project. Now in its third field season, the Mississippi State University and Tanzania Wildlife Research Institute’s project compares lion survey methods across the Serengeti-Ngorongoro-Maswa landscape on a variety of different land use types.
Prior to the AWCF meeting, SCI Foundation’s biologists will visit Serengeti National Park to assist researchers with call-in surveys and lion collaring. After thoroughly proving the validity of the methods in Tanzania, the goal is to encourage other lion range states to adopt the project’s cost-effective methods to more accurately estimate lion populations.
The upcoming AWCF will be the first opportunity to discuss the results of the Economic Contributions of Hunting-Related Tourism in Eastern and Southern Africa report, produced with information collected at AWCF and the SCI Convention by Southwick Associates. The study examined hunter spending in an eight-country area from 2012 to 2014, and discovered that more than 18,000 hunter tourists visit the region every year, supporting over 53,000 jobs and contributing $426 million to the GDP of the eight African economies.
The forum will also focus on human-wildlife conflict, international policy, community based conservation approaches, wildlife management issues, and other research priorities.
(Promo video from AWCF 2014: Ethiopia)
SCI Foundation is honored to co-host this meeting with the United Republic of Tanzania’s Ministry of Natural Resources and Tourism. We are thrilled to see participation from high-level government officials from Tanzania, numerous African nations, and we expect a productive meeting.
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