The Conservation Lab, the two-day annual conference attached to the We Are Africa luxury travel show, celebrated its fifth anniversary recently, and it seems to have come of age. Every delegate I spoke to said they had found it rewarding and thoughtprovoking and several claimed to have instituted actionable initiatives as a result of onstage discussions.
There were significant changes over previous Labs. Firstly, the launch of CCFA (Community Conservation Fund Africa) included a US$10,000 donation to the Lab to pay for the flights of rural community leaders who would otherwise not have been able to afford to attend. One of the criticisms of past events was that the rural communities living alongside wild animals were barely represented here. (I must declare a vested interest here, as I am a co-founder of CCFA.)
The CCFA also made a US$25,000 award to the Mahenye Community project in Zimbabwe and the recipient, legendary conservationist Clive Stockil, received a standing ovation from the assembled delegates.