The Future Rangers Program

Matt Lindenberg grew up in South Africa, next to the world famous Kruger National Park. As a youngster, Matt fell in love with the large, charismatic wildlife of Africa, along with the people and heroes who have dedicated their lives to conserving these critically biodiverse areas. In Matt's early 20's, he was mentored by one of the greatest ranger trainers ever to live; Mr. Martin Mthembu. Martin trained over 15,000 rangers in his career throughout Africa and believed that community involvement and benefits to the local populations was critical to conserving wildlife.

After Mr. Mthembu's tragic passing, Matt endeavored to honor Martin's Legacy by founding the Global Conservation Corps (GCC). This International nonprofit is dedicated to bridging the gap between communities and conservation, not only to curb the devastating wave of commercial poaching, but to provide jobs and opportunities to the local populations living within the greater wildlife economy.

The majority of youth in South Africa have very little access or benefit from the continued existence of wildlife. Most youth living next to the Kruger National Park have never seen or interacted with their national heritage. High levels of unemployment and poverty in this region of over 3.2 million people have led vulnerable populations, especially youth, to resort to wildlife crime, criminal actions, corruption and other actions to derive an income. 

GCC has developed the Future Rangers Program which tracks individual learners through their schooling career, while providing mentoring, hard & soft skills training, work placements and scholarships to place the most passionate students into the wildlife economy. 

This program has a huge potential to scale into global areas of conservation priority. Our educational program and associated app connects youth to nature, providing employment opportunities, stability within households, creating value for communities and protecting wild areas for future generations. 

Kruger National Park in South Africa is one of the largest conservation areas in the world. The two provinces situated next to the Kruger are Limpopo and Mpumalanga, with unemployment rates of 33.8% and 24.9%, respectively. When GCC has conducted surveys in local schools, roughly 7 out of 10 students have never seen wildlife, although they might live within 5km from the nearest national park. 

Rhino poaching has increased over 8,000% in the last 10 years, with 2-3 rhinos poached every day for it's horn. The youth populations have been severely roped into poaching syndicates due to lack of employment opportunities and connection to wildlife. Additionally, many local jobs are fulfilled by migrant workers from urban areas or international staff due to higher levels of education and skills. Building of local capacity in these areas have been neglected, with communities and especially youth gaining little no to financial benefits from conservation and the greater wildlife economy. 

If the youth are not exposed to wildlife from a young age, they will not love it. And if you don't love something you will not protect it. Additionally, if you cannot financially benefit from conservation, you will be deterred from that career path.

The Future Rangers Program bridges the gap between communities and conservation through investing in the education of the youth from these priority areas. From 5 years of age, youth in our program are engaged in weekly conservation education lessons, whereby their passion and love for conservation are developed. Our facilitators are trained environmental educators, and their salaries are paid for by local wildlife reserves which have vested interest in the development of neighboring communities. Once our students move into secondary school, the Future Rangers Program starts to identify the most dedicated learners who seek to pursue careers in the greater wildlife economy. During secondary school, we start focusing on hard and soft skills training, mentoring, learnerships, job-shadowing and eventual employment opportunities within various industries which benefit and support the conservation sector. 

The entire Program is supported by the Future Rangers App, which creates individual learner profiles for these students, which tracks every single lesson, activity, experience and conservation interaction these learners experience. This app creates a portfolio of evidence which shows specific skills, traits, passions and goals of the student, and then connects these passionate learners with employers in the conservation sector.

We work in the greater Kruger National Park region in the Bushbuckridge Municipality of South Africa. This massive community of over 3 million people has little access to employment and learning opportunities. Due to the injustices of the apartheid government, these areas have been historically disregarded, and the population sidelined. Many of the individuals here are South African, but also comprise of immigrants and refugees from Mozambique, Zimbabwe and the Congo. Through our local staff and project managers, we understand the greatest need of these communities to be that of employment opportunities and the development of desirable skills. 

There is a huge disconnect between the main industry (tourism) and the local communities, and GCC is aiming to solve this divided relationship. With regards to engagement, we continuously engage with teachers, principals, circuit managers, curriculum managers and local government to aid and assist them in their conservation education outcomes. Furthermore, we engage with the parents of our students multiple times a year to get direct feedback around their children's program. With conservation being the largest employer of people in the region by far, the South African government has recognized and supported the work of the Future Rangers Program.

The Future Rangers Program directly seems to impact communities in South Africa who have historically been marginalized and left behind. We seek to change the societies which border the Kruger National Park area through access to high-level conservation education, which can be directly translated into employment for the local population. It's imperative to note in this section that very few local people in South Africa (especially the youth) have ever benefitted immensely from wildlife and tourism since the apartheid regime forcibly removed these people from their native lands. We seek to reunite our local people with their national heritage.

During my 12 years as a conservation and ranger trainer in South Africa, I have become extremely close with the head of security for the Timbavati Private Game Reserve in South Africa. Mr. Anton Mzimba has been a ranger for 25 years, and has been at the forefront of the rhino poaching war. Surprisingly, Anton's greatest fear is not losing the rhino. His greatest fear is that the young, new generation of rangers do not generally pursue conservation for the passion, but rather for the money. Anton explained the reason for this change in values is that the youth of today are growing up completely disconnected from wildlife. Therefore they see conservation as a job, rather than a passionate calling. Without a deep passion entrenched in the values of conservation, individuals are able to sell vital information to poaching gangs about the locations of protected species like rhinos and elephants. 

If this issue is not addressed rapidly, the work of rangers and conservationists will have been for nothing. Anton lamented that the next generation of conservationists, leaders and decision makers need to have a deep love for wildlife. For this reason and more, the Future Rangers Program was established.

I was raised in this incredible area of South Africa. When I was young, I remember meeting rangers in Kruger National Park. They were brave men and women who dedicated their lives to protecting wild places. Since then, I knew I wanted to make an immense difference in ensuring that these wild areas remain protected. When it comes to the Future Rangers Program, specifically, I grew up as a relatively privileged child in South Africa and always had the ability to visit national parks with my family. However, over the years, I have seen how so many young people do not have that privilege because their parents don't have cars, or because the gate entry fee in prohibitive. I want to ensure that the youth of South Africa is able to fall in love with wildlife and the natural world in a similar way that I have. I truly believe that this program has the ability to scale around the world to empower youth to embrace, love and care for the natural world on many levels. There is nothing more rewarding than working with people and wildlife on a daily basis to create a harmonious and bright future for all. 

As a native South Africa, I have a huge and vested interest in ensuring that both the people and wildlife of my home country have a sustainable future. Although relatively young, I have been working in the conservation field for 12 years in the Kruger National Park. My hard skills include a BSc. in Zoology from the University of South Africa, a MSc. in Biology from Grand Valley State University, and current enrollment in an MBA Program with the African Leadership University. My soft skills include highly advanced communication and leadership skills, as I currently manage a team of over 20 people as Executive Director of the Global Conservation Corps. 

Academics aside, I started the Future Rangers Program and have grown it in the last 2.5 years to reach over 4,000 South African students every single week across 8 schools. We have seen positive changes in the values that the youth place on wildlife, and have seen a reduction in poaching within the various communities we operate in. We have the most incredible team and staff behind the program, with massive buy in from the local communities we serve. I am fortunate enough to have an incredible Board of Directors which aid me immensely in making strategic and investment decisions. Most importantly, I cannot think of a world without wildlife, and where people benefit from the existence of that wildlife, and have the the passion, energy and drive to scale our program rapidly to an international level.

My nonprofit (GCC) has been filming a Netflix original documentary about the rangers in South Africa. A massive part of this film is about the selection process whereby ranger candidates are identified in a grueling 5 day process. Our partners at the SA Wildlife College have been shutdown by CV-19, meaning there was no selection scheduled for the rest of 2020. This nearly crippled the entire film. However, I asked the Wildlife College if GCC could find the funds, would they run an entire selection for us to film. We went through months of finding ways to make a plan to film, and I am proud to say as I write this application, we are currently filming! GCC managed to fund 37 candidates to attend selection, of which the top 12 will receive scholarships to train as fully qualified rangers, after which will be employed at partner wildlife reserves. Our Board has decided to make this a recurring event and we have proudly launched the Future Rangers Scholarship Fund! So when all hope seemed lost, I asked the right questions, engaged with the right stakeholders, and believed that there was a way through this major challenge!

The Global Conservation Corps (GCC) is 5 years old. For the first 3.5 years, I worked for free in the evenings, and had a "for-profit" position which I worked from 9-5. I always wanted to ensure that a founding principal of GCC was that 100% of donations went to the cause, and so during that period I ethically didn't feel right taking a salary. After a lot of hard work, amazing contacts, and incredible success with our programs, we started attracting operational funding for our nonprofit. However, during that time, I had an incredible volunteer on our team who had been working for free for 6 months, and who I didn't want to lose. When we obtained our first long-term investment for operational funding, I made sure that every cent went to this employee who has now become the Program Director for Future Rangers. I understood that in order to keep this phenomenal person on staff, I need to continue putting the cause first, and ensuring I could afford to have the best team at GCC. I was broke when I made this decision, but knew that putting your team ahead of ones self is crucial from a leader.