August 23, 2001 | Read Time: 6 minutes
For Wendy Wood, rural Africa has been transformed from an exotic travel destination into a passionate cause.
As the newly appointed U.S. representative of a Johannesburg nonprofit group called the Africa Foundation, Ms. Wood is enlisting American support to help communities in or near African wildlife conservation preserves that have become tourist attractions for international travelers. Many of the remote areas lack school buildings or health clinics, and apart from the jobs offered by the lodges and tour companies, there are often few opportunities for employment.
Much of the Africa Foundation’s work focuses on building and upgrading classrooms, media centers, and health clinics, delivering used computers to rural schools, and distributing donated books and other materials. But the charity also offers scholarships to educate community leaders and to train people in conservation and the hospitality industry, supports AIDS-awareness programs, sponsors conservation debates, and underwrites micro-lending programs, sports facilities, and theater groups.
About 45 percent of the Africa Foundation’s $370,000 annual budget comes from grants and donations. Some 15 percent represents fees and interest income, while the balance comes from earnings on the foundation’s endowment.
Ms. Wood hopes to see that budget grow, particularly through gifts from American donors.
A Seattle native, Ms. Wood worked for a time after college in restaurants and resorts in the nearby San Juan Islands. In 1995, she accompanied her husband, Jason, to South Africa, where he was seeking work as a ranger in a game park. Capitalizing on her background in the hospitality industry, she found work at Phinda Forest Lodge, located in a private reserve operated by Conservation Corporation Africa, an ecotourism company that runs safaris and more than two dozen luxury resort lodges in six African countries. The 42,000-acre reserve borders the Indian Ocean in northern KwaZulu-Natal, just south of Mozambique, and features seven distinct ecosystems, including sand forest, riverine forest, savanna, and mountain grasslands.
Ms. Wood was soon promoted to lodge operations manager at Phinda Forest Lodge, where guests pay between $300 and $900 a day to enjoy spectacular scenery and the chance to view some of the wildlife that has been reintroduced in the former pineapple farm and cattle ranch. The reserve boasts healthy populations of Cape buffalo, elephants, giraffes, leopards, lions, white rhinoceroses, zebras, and other big game animals, as well as dolphins, turtles, and some 400 species of birds.
After spending a year at the game reserve, Ms. Wood and her family returned to the United States in 1997 so that her husband could pursue a doctorate in geography at the University of California at Davis.
This year, Ms. Wood was hired to head U.S. fund-raising efforts by the Africa Foundation, which began life as the philanthropic arm of Conservation Corporation Africa, the tour company for which she had previously worked. The foundation recently became independent from the company and now works closely with several other tour operators as well, though it continues to work most extensively with CC Africa.
Taking a break while visiting relatives in the San Juan Islands, Ms. Wood talked about how her new job permits her to combine her concern for wildlife with her passion for helping Africans.
Why did the foundation decide to set up shop in the United States?
We have lots of current and potential donors in the U.S., plus several of our trustees are here. It’s much easier to conduct business with them from here, given the distance and time difference from South Africa.
What distinguishes the Africa Foundation from other groups that support rural development?
All of the rural communities we work in border private or government game reserves. We are trying to expand and protect the wildlife areas by working with these communities and helping them realize the value of this land for conservation. We bring schoolchildren to Phinda for conservation lessons, and they spend the day with a game ranger learning about acacia trees and elephants, for example. Most of these children have never actually seen a lion or an elephant before, because the animals are pretty much restricted to private reserves that you have to pay to get in, and you have to drive in a vehicle to see them.
Historically, not much of the tourism revenue gets left behind with local people. But we’re trying to balance the interests of rural people with those of people who want to conserve that land.
Our hope is to make conservation not only a viable option but also a profitable option for people in those communities, so that they’re the ones who end up benefiting from it.
How does the contrast between luxurious resort lodges and impoverished local communities affect your work?
In some ways, these reserves have become exclusive playgrounds that you need to pay to enter. Many of the areas now designated as parkland or conservation reserves were arable lands, which the local people used for grazing or gathering firewood.
Now, because it’s under conservation, they no longer have access to that land. We’re one of the only groups out there that are trying to address the relationship between the communities and the game reserves. This is the way ecotourism is going to have to go in the future. I don’t think we can continue to try to conserve all this land without addressing the needs of the surrounding communities.
How does the foundation decide what areas to support?
One of the things that make us unique is that all of our projects come from the communities, who bring us their proposals and have an active role in implementing them. These are programs that they want and have identified, not us.
The scope of the needs can seem overwhelming. When I was back in Phinda this year, the manager said, “I want to show you this school,” and he drove me out to see it. It was built out of gathered wood, about 20 by 30 feet, with a door they found somewhere. There were only about 12 benches in it and a chalkboard. He told me that 300 kids came there, because the nearest real classroom was seven kilometers away.
What motivates you in seeking support for a continent that most Americans have never visited?
My husband and I believe that for our children and for future generations it’s imperative that we work to preserve the world’s beautiful natural environments. That’s what makes us tick.
Africa is amazingly beautiful. The best thing I can do is raise awareness about the needs of people in rural Africa and the work being done there, and to facilitate it so that people who are interested in making a difference are able to contribute. The most important thing is telling the story of people who live so remotely that their story doesn’t get out. I don’t think there’s any reason why we can’t have a more equal distribution of resources across the world.
About Wendy Wood, Africa Foundation’s New U.S. Leader
Education: Attended Bellevue Community College, 1986-89, and Western Washington University, 1989-91. Received a B.A. in English.
Charitable interests: She and her husband donate to the Nature Conservancy and the Sierra Club. She has also volunteered in the San Juan Islands for the San Juan Community Theatre, the Whale Museum, and the Wolf Hollow Wildlife Rehabilitation Center.
Hobbies: Kayaking, sailing, reading.
Personal life: Married and has two children.
