Can conservation go viral in Africa? Peter Knights thinks so.

Few conservationists have shaped the public conversation around wildlife protection quite like Peter Knights. Best known for co-founding WildAid and helping to redefine conservation as a communications challenge as much as an ecological one, Knights built a career not by tracking poachers in the field but by shifting minds on a mass scale. His campaigns, often fronted by celebrities such as Yao Ming and Jackie Chan, have helped to dramatically reduce demand for products like shark fin and ivory across Asia, leveraging over a billion dollars’ worth of donated media airtime in the process.

Now, after decades of work focused primarily on consumer markets in Asia, Knights has turned his attention to Africa with a new initiative: Wild Africa. Co-founded with his wife, Corie, the effort marks both a continuation of their long-standing communications-based strategy and a significant geographic and cultural pivot.

“My wife Corie and I wanted to focus solely on Africa, working with an all-African team,” Knights says.

The goal is not just to protect species, but to embed conservation into the cultural mainstream—using African voices, African media, and African institutions.

The need, he argues, is urgent and distinct.

“The challenge in Asia was to persuade people that wildlife needed to be conserved rather than consumed. The need in Africa is to essentially popularize or mainstream conservation,” he explains.

In Knights’ view, the continent stands at a crossroads. As agriculture expands and populations grow, Africa remains the last stronghold for many large mammals. But without broad-based public support, he warns, conservation risks being perceived as the preserve of elites—foreign in both origin and benefit.

The Wild Africa model borrows from Knights’ earlier playbook: enlist high-profile ambassadors, secure free media placements, and deliver punchy, emotionally resonant messaging. But there are key differences in application. While WildAid’s shark fin campaigns leaned on urban consumers’ appetite for status symbols, Wild Africa’s campaigns must address rural livelihoods, national pride, and the economic realities of countries balancing development pressures with biodiversity loss.

“People must be aware,” says Knights, “and without the public awareness and consequent political will, the wildlife will be increasingly marginalized as it has been elsewhere.”

Already, Wild Africa has built an expansive network spanning over 80 media partners and 200 ambassadors across sub-Saharan Africa—from musicians and athletes to religious leaders and former heads of state. Projects like Music for Wildlife, which features over 140 artists, and Dr. Mark’s Animal Show, a homegrown conservation program for children, aim to deliver infotainment that resonates deeply with local audiences.

“If it is not entertaining, you won’t get the attention,” Knights says bluntly.

For Knights, conservation success is not measured solely in protected areas or poachers arrested, but in whether societies see wildlife as part of their identity and future. That means reshaping narratives as much as deploying rangers or funding sanctuaries.

“Abraham Lincoln said, ‘Public sentiment is everything,’” he notes. “With public sentiment, nothing can fail; without it, nothing can succeed.”

As always, the strategy depends on scale. Wild Africa aims to operate across the continent for under $5 million annually, leveraging pro bono media to reach tens of millions. The ambition is characteristically bold—but not without precedent, given the couple’s track record. Still, the terrain is different, and the political will harder to predict. Knights is under no illusion about the challenges: “You have to be ruthlessly strategic and punch way above your weight to make any kind of lasting change.”

What he and Corie are betting on, once again, is that compelling stories—told by trusted voices—can shape the future of an entire continent’s relationship with nature. Whether that bet pays off may help determine whether Africa’s extraordinary biodiversity becomes a source of shared national pride or a memory consigned to film and folklore.

An interview with Peter Knights

What inspired you to start Wild Africa, and how does it differ from your work with WildAid?

My wife Corie and I wanted to focus solely on Africa, working with an all-African team. We believe Africa is home to the world’s most amazing wildlife. The future pressures are immense but surmountable with public and political support. When humans and our domesticated animals make up 98% of the land mammal biomass, it is the only continent to really conserve large mammals, and they are under siege as agriculture and populations are expanding.

While we’re using the same local ambassador-led leveraged media model we developed to reduce demand for rhino horn, ivory, and shark fin in Asia, there the challenge was to persuade people that wildlife needed to be conserved rather than consumed. The need in Africa is to essentially popularize or mainstream conservation. Historically, it’s been viewed as an elitist or foreign concern, and for conservation to succeed and endure it needs a far broader base of support locally. To care, people must be aware, and without the public awareness and consequent political will, the wildlife will be increasingly marginalized as it has been elsewhere.

Wild Africa has quickly built a vast network of media and ambassadors across the continent. How do you go about forming those partnerships?

What we found in Asia is when the media and people understood the problems, they invariably wanted to help, and it is the same in Africa – the moral support is there, it just needs a coherent outlet, and that is where we can be a catalyst. With over 80 media partners, we are a pro bono, quality content provider—we supply ongoing series, public service messaging, and news content to media challenged by very tight budgets. We are always delighted to co-brand, and we also co-produce TV, radio, and print pieces. Media often lack the specialized staff with conservation knowledge, access to quality photos and video b-roll, budgets to travel to the field, and relations with conservation authorities, and we can be the bridge that enables them to consistently cover these stories accurately.

With our ambassadors, we have a great track record of working with luminaries from Jackie Chan and Yao Ming to Prince William and David Beckham, and from Lupita Nyong’o and Danai Gurira to Tanzanian religious leaders and former presidents. We provide ambassadors with a fact-checked platform so they can express their support and concern for wildlife, and often we can give them the opportunity to experience it up close and go behind the scenes in conservation. The passion is there, but there hasn’t been an outlet previously.

Our other vital partners are the local governments—both wildlife and tourism ministries—that often lack communications expertise and resources but share our goals of reducing human-wildlife conflict and promoting reporting of wildlife crime and domestic wildlife tourism. We also partner with the local and international wildlife groups on the ground that have by necessity mainly focused their communications on outside fundraising in the US and Europe rather than winning local hearts and minds. Our programming can be used for both.

Can you explain how media campaigns and public service announcements actually help protect wildlife on the ground?

Three quotes sum this up for me.

Walter Annenberg: “Every human advancement or reversal can be understood through communication.”

Abraham Lincoln said, “Public sentiment is everything. With public sentiment, nothing can fail; without it nothing can succeed.”

Kaddu Sebunya, African Wildlife Foundation CEO, asserts, “Conservation must engage the majority of Africans… to ensure that the voters… include wildlife and wild lands in their requests to the politicians.”

Ultimately, resolve to tackle these issues comes down to political will in the face of competing demands for resources and attention. This in turn stems from societal attitudes and public support. For example, people need to be aware that 80% of tourists come to the continent primarily for the wildlife—and this creates millions of much-needed jobs and revenue. So it’s not a question of wildlife or people’s interests, it is about creating win-wins for both. Law enforcement does better if it has public support and people are actively reporting crime. The more local people visit their parks, the more supportive they are. People are more likely to tolerate human-wildlife conflict if they feel their concerns are being heard and they are being helped with solutions. People also need to understand the threats of zoonotic disease and the other risks of the illegal bushmeat trade—and they need to be on the lookout to protect wildlife.

Especially in light of the recent cutbacks in support from the US and UK governments, African governments have to pick up the slack, and they need public support for this. They can also feel that their positive efforts go unreported, and a public pat on the back can go a long way to incentivizing further action.

You’ve launched programs like Music for Wildlife and Dr. Mark’s Animal Show. Why is cultural relevance and entertainment so central to your strategy?

We all identify better with people from their own communities, so it’s important that we work with local ambassadors from music, entertainment, sport, politics, and religion. We have over 200 ambassadors now, and each of these sectors can appeal to different audiences. Music for Wildlife features over 140 local musicians from more than a dozen countries, performing with wildlife information and shorts incorporated into a half-hour show. It is about to air on TRACE (Africa’s MTV) and MTN’s new streaming service (MTN is the largest mobile network with 280 million subscribers), as well as national TV networks.

Infotainment is how most people consume media these days, so if it is not entertaining, you won’t get the attention. We hope to attract younger people through the music, and while they are there, microdose them with inspirational conservation stories.

Dr. Mark’s Animal Show is airing in five countries, and there is tremendous demand for African-led educational shows for kids rather than imports. We can’t make the episodes quickly enough and have another co-production with TeenTV underway.

How does the Wildlife Info WhatsApp chatbot work, and what kind of impact are you hoping it will have in places like Zimbabwe?

Our colleagues at Save the Elephants created a toolkit on elephant behavior and conflict reduction techniques, but this is a big, heavy book. So together with the Elephant Crisis Fund, we wanted to make that information more widely available. We’ve digitized it into an AI-powered chatbot that you can freely access via a WhatsApp number and also broadened it to cover more wildlife species. Now we are translating it into local languages as well, taking it on the road to villages in high-conflict areas with ZimParks and local NGOs. There’s also information on reporting wildlife crime and injured wildlife. We promoted it through public service messaging with national broadcasters ZBC and NRTV. So far, it has prompted ZimParks and the Zimbabwean Ministry of Agriculture to get more engaged in human-wildlife conflict issues, as it helps empower communities and offers more solutions than euthanizing problem animals. Our hope is that Zimbabwe, with some of the most severe conflict issues, can become a global leader in human-wildlife coexistence.

What does success look like for Wild Africa by the year 2030?

We would like to create a pan-African network of media, government, NGO, and ambassador partners, ensuring a constant flow of conservation content and that all Africans have a deep understanding and pride in being the best in the world at conservation. We can create nationwide TV, billboard, radio, and social media campaigns for a few hundred thousand dollars per country, leveraging millions in pro bono media and influencer support, so this could be achieved for less than $5 million a year.

Pangolin billboard. Photo courtesy of Wild Africa.

That, in turn, supports a booming wildlife tourism industry pumping money into African economies and creating jobs in rural areas, now heavily used by local people, not just international tourists. We would see all countries with strong wildlife legislation, supported by the entire population engaged in reporting any wildlife crime, and where consumption of illegal bushmeat is socially unacceptable. Human-wildlife conflict is now managed through a suite of mitigation methods rapidly deployed. Despite climate change, wildlife populations are stable or increasing, and in countries where they have been wiped out, they’re being reintroduced to boost tourism.

It sounds ambitious, but there is a tremendous coalition of governments, NGOs, and individuals that share the same goals.

You’ve been in wildlife conservation for decades. What first drew you to this field?

It seemed to me that the ultimate test of humanity is how we treat our fellow creatures, and I couldn’t believe that we had wiped out half of Africa’s elephants in a few decades due to the ivory trade. Can our intelligence and compassion trump our greed and short-sightedness? Despite all our challenges and often our thoughtless domination of the planet, I believe there is good in our hearts, and we need to bring that out beyond religion and politics—and perhaps through nature and wildlife, we can find that spirit. For Corie and me, sitting in the middle of a herd of wild elephants is our religious experience, to wonder at the beauty of our planet and how blessed we are to be alive.

Looking back at your work with WildAid, what are you most proud of achieving?

In terms of tangible victories, reducing the shark fin imports to China by over 80%, President Xi’s ivory ban, and the reduction in pricing and demand for ivory and rhino horn by more than 60% were highlights.

As a relatively tiny organization, we helped catalyze a generational change across Asia in attitudes to wildlife in the nick of time. We really pioneered reducing demand for wildlife products on a vast scale, leveraging ultimately more than a billion dollars of media from a few million dollars. Being trailblazers and unconventional was a tremendous struggle financially. It took 20 years for people to understand that demand could be addressed affordably and to support the work to the proper extent.

What lessons from WildAid are you bringing to Wild Africa?

Another of my favorite quotes is from Margaret Mead: “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.” You have to be ruthlessly strategic and punch way above your weight to make any kind of lasting change, and your whole team needs to be all-in. In military terms, there are tasks for the general infantry and the big organizations, and things that only small special forces can achieve, like communications and attitudinal change. When you are small, which you need to be for the flexibility and agility required in communications, every team member must be a high performer. At Wild Africa, we’re a dozen full-timers and a handful of consultants impacting a continent of 1.5 billion by catalyzing and enabling our partnerships.

We have been able to replicate the Asian model across a number of countries in Africa, as we again struggle to finance these strategic programs that aren’t conventional science or law enforcement. I hope we achieve critical mass financially much faster this time, as the need is urgent, and I believe we’ve proven we can do it.

What are the most urgent threats facing African wildlife today—and how can media make a difference in addressing them?

Human-wildlife conflict needs public acknowledgment so that affected communities don’t feel ignored, and authorities can help work on solutions and education on the causes and mitigation methods available. Related to this is habitat loss, made worse by climate change, causing both severe droughts and flooding. In terms of the illegal bushmeat trade, we can deter the buyers by informing them of the very real zoonotic disease risks and the impact on non-target species that often get snared by mistake. On poaching and snaring, we focus on understanding the possible impact on tourism and endangered species, and encouraging reporting and better enforcement of laws.

Human-wildlife conflict is a growing issue in many parts of Africa. What’s the most promising solution you’ve seen so far?

Human-wildlife conflict is largely what destroyed wildlife in the rest of the world, so Africa has really done the best so far in promoting coexistence, but climate change is making it more and more pressing. There are no silver bullets, but there are a number of mitigation techniques that have shown some great results—from beehives to smelly chili repellents—which we promote through the app. We’ve just done a film with the Gonarezhou Conservation Trust in Zimbabwe, where a community started growing chili to deter elephant raiding, and now they are selling chili to the Nando’s fast food chain, and it is one of their most profitable crops.

Lots of these win-win opportunities are possible with some modest financing, and personally I think that tourism visa fees should have an extra $15+ for a People and Wildlife Coexistence Fund to enable impacted communities to deploy these methods and enable faster government responses. I don’t believe this would deter a single tourist, but it could make a huge difference on the ground, generating tens of millions of dollars annually.

Many African conservation groups operate on limited budgets. How does Wild Africa support local organizations and amplify their voices?

Our “Unsung Heroes” series showcases individuals with these organizations in mini-documentaries, and these are released in between music concerts in the Music for Wildlife series and other shows, and we make them available for their fundraising purposes. We’ve also been running these with radio versions and print articles, so we hope this increases their profiles.

Tourism is often touted as a solution for conservation. What approaches or safeguards can help ensure it benefits local people as well as wildlife?

Tourism is without a doubt the reason Africa has been able to conserve its wildlife, where other continents failed. In some places, it needs better regulation. We’re not brilliant at income equality in many places in the world, and it takes time for local people to be able to work in and manage what is usually high-end tourism, but it’s important that lodges seek to engage communities in growing produce and building local capacity. I think many tourists appreciate this, so it can be part of marketing.

The conservancy model—where initially local communities lease out tourism opportunities on their land and then over time they can build up all the skill sets, from accounting to top-quality service to marketing, and take them over when the lease expires—seems promising.

What role do young Africans—especially musicians, influencers, and students—play in the future of conservation on the continent?

Africa is the youngest continent, with over 60% of the population under 25, so they are the future. Their passion and pride will be essential in future choices on how people and wildlife can thrive together.

Do you have any advice for someone who wants to get into wildlife conservation as a career?

Start a dotcom and make some money first!

Conservation may seem like it is about animals, but it’s really all about people. So be ready to be dealing with people, politics, and of course money, because without finance there’s no conservation.

More and more amazing young Africans are pursuing great careers in conservation, so the need for scientific fieldwork by people from outside Africa is much diminished. That said, if you can bring some fresh skills and provide training, there is a constant desire to build capacity. Especially after the recent US and UK cutbacks, and with the pressures from climate change, there is real value in helping to bring finance to invest in conservation across Africa.

If someone wants to help protect wildlife in Africa, what’s the best thing they can do? Can you answer this both in terms of someone in a place like the U.S. and someone relatively local, like an African city?

From the U.S. and Europe, obviously support conservation organizations doing great work on the ground and do what you can to reduce your carbon footprint. However, I would encourage everyone who can to visit Africa to view the wildlife as one of the greatest adventures on Earth. By doing so, you put money into the economies and support the country’s conservation efforts financially. A warning though—that it is addictive. Tourists come for the wildlife and then fall in love with the people and want to come back.

In Africa, if you’re able to travel, don’t fly to Dubai—go visit your parks and be inspired and proud. Spread the word on what’s happening and the economic and cultural importance of conservation to your friends, your family, and your politicians.

Header image: African elephant in Namibia. Photo by Rhett Ayers Butler.

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Rhett Butler Editor

This story first appeared on Mongabay

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