Due to the Covid 19 and social distancing measures, The Rufford Conference in Egypt was held in two small groups instead of the usual Rufford large meetings in African. These were two-day experience sharing meetings were fully funded by the Rufford Foundation for its Grant Recipients to share experience and best practices, discuss conservation and project issues, and create direct communications among themselves.
The Rufford conferences are much more needed now than ever as the current Covid 19 situation has caused the highest level of isolation among the conservationists. Indeed, these two conferences made a huge timely impact. First of all, being in small groups, there was much experience sharing by each participant and much learning from each other. And being the first attended conference for most of the participants, they admitted that everything was new and interesting. Secondly, by providing a secure physical environment for them to meet up and share experience, the Recipients felt very encouraged and cared for by the foundation and most importantly reconnected with likeminded conservationists. So, all the Participants expressed their appreciation to the foundation for this timely opportunity of meeting up in the times of high isolation.
