Africa
About Our Work
Africa is an immense continent, with highly threatened crane populations in more than 20 countries. The struggle for socio-economic development across the continent puts enormous pressure on wetlands, grasslands, and agricultural lands that sustain cranes and other wildlife. To achieve our vision, we aim to fully integrate our crane and biodiversity conservation approaches with the welfare of the communities that share their lands with cranes. Our work builds community resilience in a changing political, climatic, economic, and social world and promotes sustainable land-use practices that benefit people, cranes, and broader biodiversity.
We are working to reverse the decline of all four threatened crane species that are resident in the continent—Endangered Grey Crowned Cranes and Vulnerable Wattled, Black Crowned, and Blue Cranes—by reducing the most serious threats to these species and securing their most important breeding, foraging, roosting, and non-breeding grounds. We are also monitoring migratory Demoiselles and Eurasian Cranes to ensure their wintering grounds in northern Africa remain secure, while our conservation efforts in Eurasia aim to reduce hunting pressure for these species along their Middle East/Central Asia flyway.
Photo: Black Crowned Crane pair by Ted Thousand
On 5th June 2026, the International Crane Foundation partnered with the Ministry of Green Economy and Environment and other stakeholders to commemorate World Environment Day at Lusaka National Park in Lusaka under the national theme, “Accelerating Zambia’s Climate Action for Green Growth and Sustainability.”
Zambia has taken a major step toward securing the future of the Kafue Flats, one of the country’s most important ecosystems, with the launch of seven General Management Plans for protected areas by the former Minister of Tourism, Mr. Rodney Sikumba.
For the last few years, we have been receiving reports of a lone Wattled Crane among Blue Cranes in Mpumalanga province, eastern South Africa. Never in our wildest dreams did we think a Wattled crane would pair up with a Blue Crane, but the inevitable happened.
