In 2025, the Greater Kruger Environmental Protection Foundation (GKEPF) continued to play a coordinating role across one of Africa’s most complex and important conservation landscapes. Operating at a landscape scale that spans private, provincial, and national protected areas,
GKEPF works to enable alignment, cooperation, and shared responsibility in the protection of wildlife, people, and ecological integrity.
The Greater Kruger region remains under sustained pressure from environmental crime, illegal wildlife harvesting, and socio-economic challenges that extend far beyond reserve boundaries. These threats are dynamic, interconnected, and increasingly sophisticated. In this context, no
single reserve, organisation, or authority can operate effectively in isolation. GKEPF exists to help bridge those boundaries, supporting collaboration, strengthening systems, and ensuring that information, capacity, and resources are shared where they are most needed.
Throughout 2025, GKEPF focused on reinforcing what works. This included supporting coordinated protection efforts, strengthening aerial and technological monitoring, enabling species recovery initiatives, investing in ranger and reserve capacity, and continuing to build people-centred prevention programmes that recognise the long-term role of communities and youth in conservation resilience. Rather than replacing the work of management authorities, GKEPF’s role is to connect and amplify it, enabling faster, more informed, and more cohesive responses across the landscape.
The year also reflected a growing emphasis on prevention alongside protection. From infrastructure projects and deterrence measures to youth engagement, sport, and community outreach, GKEPF continued to support interventions that reduce risk over time, not only react to threats once they occur. These efforts are grounded in evidence, shaped by on-the-ground experience, and informed by ongoing learning across the network.
Our 2025 report reflects a year of steady, practical progress. It highlights the actions taken, the systems supported, and the partnerships that make coordinated conservation possible in the Greater Kruger. While the challenges facing wildlife remain significant, the collective capacity to respond, through alignment, trust, and shared purpose, is stronger than ever
