Friends of Conservation

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Friends of Conservation
Kensington Charity Centre
Charles House
375 Kensington High St
London W14 8QH
Tel: 020 7603 5024
Email: focinfo@aol.com

Conservation Issues

In the early 1900’s cheetah numbers were perhaps has high as 100,000. Today, scientists estimate as few as 12,000 remain, meaning that the world’s fastest land animal is also Africa’s most endangered cat. Although recognised as one of nature’s most beautiful and compelling animals, the cheetahs plight has gone from simply alarming to extremely critical in the space of one human lifetime. Namibia has the largest and one of the few sustainable populations of free-ranging cheetahs in the world.

The tragic decline in the number of cheetahs is due principally to the loss of the cheetah’s habitat and their prey. Within game parks and reserves, more dominant carnivores such as lion and hyena often force cheetahs out of protected areas to hunt in adjacent farmland. The cheetah's survival depends of the total ecological system of farm land management, species management and habitat stability.

If you would like to support FOC in its work to protect the cheetah, please click here.

Wildlife

Cheetah

The world's fastest land animal, the cheetah, is the most unique and specialized member of the cat family and can reach speeds of 70 mph. However, the sleek and long-legged cheetah is losing its race for survival. Once a common animal found on five continents, the cheetah is now an endangered species.

FOC recently became the UK fundraising arm of the Cheetah Conservation Fund (CCF) in their efforts to conserve cheetahs and their habitat. The CCF was founded in 1990 by Dr Laurie Marker and is dedicated to saving the cheetah from extinction. The CCF helped establish the Waterberg Conservancy, an area of 440,000 acres of private farmland where groups of neighbouring farmers jointly manage their natural resources and game to ensure long term conservation of the land. To read more about CCF and Dr Laurie Marker’s work, please click here.

Habitat

Large areas in Namibia suffer from severe bush encroachment. This greatly reduces the natural grasslands needed by the cheetahs. The CCF is harvesting this thickened bush and beginning to produce “bush logs” as a source of fuel for local peoples. This project will help restore cheetah habitat, create local employment and produce and ecologically sustainable product.

Community

Namibia's farmlands are now home to 70% of the country's wildlife. As a result of CCF’s research, the CCF has formulated strategies for managing the conflict between cheetahs and farmers. CCF's work focuses on livestock farming communities in order to develop ways to reduce conflict with the prey species. CCF work with communities and farmers to show how they can coexist with cheetah populations to the benefit of both, thereby ensuring the survival of the cheetah populations on farmlands.