Savannah Landscape Ecology and Education Centre (SLEEC)

Developing a Conservation Centre of Excellence

GCF in collaboration with the Namibia University of Science & Technology (NUST) Biodiversity Research Centre (BRC) has partnered with the Etosha Heights Private Reserve to develop a long-term holistic conservation and education programme. Etosha Heights has rewilded over 60,000 hectares of degraded farmland to a haven for wildlife adjacent to the iconic Etosha National Park in Namibia.

The programme explores the effect of different wildlife land use types (National Park, Private Reserve, commercial game farms and communal conservancies) on biodiversity and ecological productivity in an area covering almost 2 million hectares in the Greater Etosha South-West Landscape (GESWL).

While partnering on collaborative giraffe conservation research since 2016, GCF and BRC have decided to expand our programme to include the monitoring of a suite of large mammals (prey and predators) throughout the GESWL and develop the Savannah Landscape Ecological and Education Centre (SLEEC) at its core. A key component of SLEEC is to increase engagement with local and international conservation students, researchers, conservation volunteers and the tourism industry to develop a sustainable and integrated long-term programme in support of ongoing conservation needs throughout the landscape.