New horizons and strengthened existing partnerships were the theme of a very successful year for the PAW foundation in 2025. While our partners and projects remained largely the same from 2024, several new initiatives and opportunities arose that could play a major role in the landscape and wildlife conservation space moving forward.
The first of these new initiatives saw Katy and I head to Aspen, Colorado in July at the invitation of our long-term partner, African Parks, to learn about their new Keystone Protected Area Partnership. The Keystones initiative is a bold new effort launched by the Rob Walton Foundation bringing together African governments, communities, NGOs, and funders to protect 162 of Africa’s most irreplaceable protected areas by 2035. A “Keystone Protected Area” is a critical large landscape that is irreplaceable for nature and the millions of people who live in and around them. These landscapes hold over 70% of Africa’s endangered species. Most importantly, many African leaders have fully bought in to the Keystones initiative and plan to be critical supporters moving forward.
The PAW Foundation through our multi-year partnership with African Parks, Conservation South Luangwa (CSL), Conserve Global and others already supports many of these Keystone landscapes and plans to grow our financial and strategic support for these landscapes going forward.
The second major initiative of the year saw our team working closely on natural investments and how best to facilitate significant flows of capital to protect large landscapes in Africa with partner, Natural Capital. Natural / conservation investment secures critical wilderness areas through innovative financial strategies, creating self-sustaining models with lasting returns and long-term value for investors. This approach, which combines donor-sourced seed capital with private investment, is an innovative evolution of the traditional philanthropic funding model. Through matching selected critical ecosystems with the appropriate revenue-generating opportunities (high-end tourism, carbon credits), investment structures, and blended capital, long-term financial value can be unlocked. We see this as a potentially game changing way to protect more landscapes and species in Africa by bringing more individuals, foundations and corporate entities to the table.
(Natural Investments could be a highly beneficial model for wildlands conservation)
In September, we enjoyed another fantastic PAW retreat this time hosted by our partner Care for Wild in the spectacular surrounds of their Mountainlands Nature Reserve in South Africa. Building off the success of 2024’s first retreat, we again used this opportunity to informally talk conservation ideas and plans with our Southern African partners. We were also able to showcase the fantastic work being done by Care for Wild in their management and rewilding efforts in the reserve, from reintroductions of large game to the protection of rare native fynbos (flora). Notably, the reserve’s plant species diversity is second only in southern Africa to the Cape, and its geology has been recognized by UNESCO. New partners from Natural Capital and ORKCA were able to join us further enriching this opportunity to get conservationists together who may not see each other often.
(The vast landscape of Mountainlands Nature Reserve, location of 2025 PAW retreat)
2026 promises to be another productive and transformative year for us as we continue to give our best efforts to preserve large biodiverse landscapes and halt species loss in Africa and beyond.
(A spectacular sunset in Mountainlands Nature Reserve)