Please sponsor Alison Mollon - 100% of donations help Kasanka

Here at Fauna & Flora International, we fundamentally believe that communities and local organisations working on the front line of conservation are the ones best placed to address the interrelated biodiversity and climate crises through action at local level, but they need far more support.

The Kasanka Trust is one of those organisations. Kasanka National Park is home to a plethora of incredible wildlife, including many threatened species. It may only be a relatively small park, but what it lacks in size it makes up for in diversity.

That’s why Alison Mollon, our incredible Director of Operations for our Africa Programme at FFI, will be running the London Marathon on Sunday 3rd October 2021, raising money for the Kasanka Trust. It’s an amazing challenge and we want to help her raise as much money as possible.

The park is host to one of the greatest wildlife spectacles on Earth – the straw-coloured fruit bats migration. Each year from October – December, 10 million bats can be seen travelling across central Africa to a small area in the centre of the park. When they leave at dusk, they form a spectacular sight – flying and swooping in extraordinary numbers to feed on the bounties of fruit that are available in the surrounding woodlands. They return from foraging at dawn, dodging predators whilst they soar through the skies, eventually settling in large clusters to roost during the day.

The park itself was designed around the rich variety of habitats there – wetlands, floodplains and forests form the fascinating landscape. It is home to an incredible 479 bird species and 114 mammals, including the secretive, semi-aquatic Sitatunga, and a small but recovering elephant population.

The Kasanka Trust engages with local communities to promote sustainable livelihoods and alternatives sources of income to poaching. that provide alternative sources of income other than poaching. However, devastatingly, the Kasanka Trust has lost over a third of their operational budget over the last 18 months, taking heavy blows following the coronavirus outbreak.

Your gift could make the difference for this remarkable organisation and the species in critical need that they work so hard to help. Thank you.