TUSK AWARD FOR CONSERVATION IN AFRICA FINALIST 2020
Ian Stevenson
Zambia
Ian Stevenson’s work and leadership in the Lower Zambezi has led to an impressive and dramatic decline in elephant poaching. His passion has seen him dedicate his life to conservation in the region, bringing together a team of capable Zambians to help advance his vision as CEO of Conservation Lower Zambezi.
Thinking beyond any single species, his calling has been to protect and conserve the Lower Zambezi as an ecosystem. Only then, he believes, will elephants and other iconic species have a chance of survival. With sustainability at the forefront of his efforts, Ian has built critically beneficial linkages with Zambia’s Department of National Parks and Wildlife, as a result, ensuring thousands from communities surrounding conservation areas can benefit from tourism.
His dedication has also seen him establish environmental education and community engagement programmes, reaching thousands of students in some of the most rural communities surrounding the Lower Zambezi National Park.
We’ve got to try to maintain those big ecosystems without all the fences, and without all the barriers and the borders. Then, I think elephants have got a very good a very good possibility of survival into the future.
Inspired by Ian’s story? Read another extraordinary story.
