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To many people, giraffes may not seem to be in need of focused conservation attention. However, giraffes are facing increasing pressures that have adversely affected their numbers and distribution in Kenya and elsewhere across the continent. There are currently a total of nine sub-species of giraffes naturally occurring in Africa. Kenya is the only country with three of these sub-species present. Other countries have either one or two sub-species. Therefore, Kenya is the epi-centre for giraffe speciation. Over the past decade, giraffe numbers in Africa have suffered at least a 30 per cent drop in population as a direct result of habitat encroachment, habitat loss, habitat fragmentation, severe poaching, increasing human populations and human-wildlife conflicts.

This award was created in memoriam of Kai Buchholz, a young, dynamic, pragmatic and visionary individual who truly believed in making this world a better place by bringing people together and finding solutions where others saw only problems. He was a truly brilliant and talented individual - but above all he had very strong values and beliefs.

The newly formed International Association of Giraffe Care Professionals (www.giraffecare.org) hosted the first ever dedicated giraffe conference in Phoenix, Arizona in February 2010. Targeted primarily towards the captive management world (zoos), the organisers also welcomed numerous ‘wild’ conservation and management professionals to present and discuss the various giraffe issues facing the zoo and wild world today.

A volunteer whose interest in giraffe was sparked when she joined an Earthwatch project in Namibia eight years ago, has helped to establish the Giraffe Conservation Foundation (GCF).

Rebecca Muddeman is one of the founders of GCF, which officially launched in London in February of this year. Her inspiring story began in 2002 when she volunteered on an Earthwatch desert elephant and giraffe project in Namibia. It was there that she met Dr Julian Fennessy, a co-founder of GCF; Dr Fennessy is currently Executive Director of the Kenya Land Conservation Trust and one of the world's foremost giraffe experts.

In a collaborative, global effort on behalf of ElephantVoices and 50 other organisations (including GCF) from around the world, an open letter was sent to Zimbabwe outlining why the proposed capture for export of wild animal to North Korea should not proceed. Please read the letter and voice your opposition.

GCF and ASGN worked with Scholastic to create the following article profiling West African giraffe conservation efforts in the life science section of Scholastic's publication aimed at school aged children.  Kids are the future of our planet and this article is aimed squarely at raising giraffe conservation work among the youth.

For an African icon, the giraffe still holds a surprising number of cards close to its chest. We don’t even know how many there are at present. So analysing giraffe DNA samples is of utmost importance for research – and, given the size and relaxed demeanour of the animals, collecting them should be easy. Not so, says Andy Tutchings of GCF.

On Monday 15th February 2010, GCF had its official launch event at the Union Chapel in Islington, London.  Celebrating a successful year of operation, the launch was attended by supporters, conservation professionals, wildlife campaigners, friends and family of the GCF team.

Their necks on the line from poaching and habitat loss, giraffes in west Africa are being fitted with satellite-tracking collars in a bid to help conserve their numbers

Next week history will be made in Niger, West Africa when eight of the highly endangered West African Giraffe that roam there will be fitted with the very latest specifically-designed GPS satellite collars.  The collars will enable resident research scientist  Jean-Patrick Suraud  (ASGN) and his team to monitor and study more closely the  range over which these amazing animals roam.  Specific data can be downloaded every hour from the collars, if necessary,  in order to track all movements and,  over time this will give the research team a better understanding of habitat need,  enabling them to put measures in place to avoid human conflict.