The Rufford Foundation, in only East-African region, has funded more than 1000 projects and more than 500 individual Conservationists who have got many inspiring success stories, shareable resources, applicable learnt lessons and potential partnerships to share. There is a sincere need of sharing this knowledge and create partnerships among the RSG Recipients at both country and regional level as the Majority of the Recipients are still working in isolation due to inability to individually tap into this RSG rich knowledge and network reserve. Thus, the Rufford Conferences have been proven and testified by many to be the most effective platform for this knowledge sharing and partnership creation in Africa. And Zanzibar Island has been the most ideal place for the last regional conference.
The Zanzibar Rufford Conference has therefore been a memorable success story in sharing knowledge and creating partnerships among the RSG Recipients. It connected 43 Conservationists from 8 countries and they extensively shared knowledge for two days in a safe place - the Golden Tulip Hotel in Stone Town, Zanzibar. On the first day of the conference (November 24, 2021), the participants shared knowledge and discussed on “the project pragmatic issues and solutions” and later on the second day (November 25, 2021) they discussed how their projects can “move from the grant reliant projects to sustainable programmes”. The senior Government concerned officials were also engaged in discussions to link the gap between the field conservationists and decision- makers. 92% of the participants admitted to have acquired useful knowledge and contacts from the conference and 82% have been inspired and hopeful to establish partnerships with the fellow Recipients.