The Future Rangers Program is addressing a problem expressed by anti poaching rangers; lack of youth connection to wildlife. With this program being piloted in one of the highest poaching areas in the world, we aim to address the poaching crisis by helping to provide opportunities for passion, leadership training, and employment in local youth communities bordering the protected areas, as lack of employment opportunities is one of the main drivers for poaching. With leadership and skills training, the idea is to have graduates placed into jobs in the local wildlife economy.

As a 501(c)3 nonprofit registered in the USA, we procure international donor and sponsorship-based funding which is used for local-level employment of a trained environmental educator. This educator is partnered with a school bordering a high priority conservation area, usually close to or within their community, and they work closely with the students over years to teach conservation education, mentor, and deliver leadership training. We work with local partners in the wildlife economy to pair exemplary students with job trainings, internships, and possible employment upon graduation. We track trainings, attitude and behaviour change with the students through the use of the Future Rangers app, which the educators use on a daily basis on the smart phones GCC provides as part of employment. Currently, the monitoring and evaluation, as well as a global scaling framework project is being carried out thanks to support from the National Geographic Society. To expand on a large scale, Future Rangers will be partnering with lodges for local employment funding and existing environmental education programs to target areas of conservation priority, providing passionate, local employees long-term, and providing opportunity within communities that are traditionally marginalized. We’re in the early stages of designing the program, and are moving into the secondary school phase in 2020, with much interest and collaboration from partners. We’re designing the program to be flexible and formative, so that it can be scaled quickly to others areas of conservation priority.

We are currently building partnerships for technology sponsorship for our on-the-ground staff, which will enable us to closely track the program through our education app, which has already been developed and will be implemented within the month. We are also building partnerships in regards to leadership training, hard and soft skills training and capacity-building for our staff on the ground, which will be passed along to the students in our program. We are building an endowment fund for scholarships for outstanding students in our program.

This initiative is in it's early stages, and is currently governed by the governance branch of the board of the non profit Global Conservation Corps, along with input from the program director and the executive director of the non profit. This initiative complies with the South African Education Standards, and currently reports progress to the National Geographic Society as the main funder. As we expand and develop our partnerships, governance structure will change to accommodate this growth. Coordination is currently basic as the program is small, but through partnerships, networks, and scaling this program is expected to grow quickly, and governance mechanisms will adjust accordingly.

Global Conservation Corps, IUCN CEC, #NatureForAll, Africa Foundation, Southern African Wildlife College