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IFAW shows up for rangers in the Wildlife Ranger Challenge
July 21, 2026
Want to raise funds for rangers?
From July through September, IFAW-supported ranger teams across Africa will push themselves physically and mentally as part of the 2026 Wildlife Ranger Challenge, an annual event that celebrates wildlife rangers and builds support for their livelihoods, safety, wellbeing, training, and conservation impact.
Participating teams will train together, complete physical challenges, test their knowledge, and build towards the final event: a 21-kilometre race on 19 September across some of Africa’s most remote and demanding landscapes.
For IFAW, joining the challenge is an opportunity to recognise the people whose work makes conservation possible, strengthen camaraderie and connection among ranger teams, and invite our supporters around the world to stand behind them.
Because rangers show up every day for wildlife, this year we are asking you, our supporters, to show up for them too.
Want to take on a challenge of your own and raise funds in support of IFAW’s work with rangers, wildlife, and communities?
The 2025 Wildlife Ranger Challenge brought Team Lioness together to test their endurance, teamwork, and determination.Photo: © IFAW
More than a race
The Wildlife Ranger Challenge brings together ranger teams from across Africa around a shared profession and purpose. Although the 21-kilometre race is the culmination of the challenge, participating teams spend months preparing, training, testing their physical endurance and conservation knowledge, and working together towards a common goal.
For rangers who often work in remote locations, the challenge offers something that can be difficult to find in their day-to-day work. Teams take pride in representing the landscapes and communities they protect while standing alongside thousands of fellow rangers across the continent who understand the demands, responsibilities, and realities of the profession. It is an opportunity to learn from one another, build camaraderie, and celebrate a shared commitment to protecting wildlife.
That shared experience matters. Rangers are conservation professionals, first responders, community members, colleagues, and family members. Their work can involve long periods away from loved ones, difficult living and working conditions, physical danger, isolation, and stress. The Wildlife Ranger Challenge acknowledges those realities while celebrating the expertise, resilience, teamwork, and dedication that rangers bring to conservation every day.
Why IFAW is taking part
This is the second year IFAW is participating in the Wildlife Ranger Challenge as a competitor.
In Kenya, the women of Team Lioness and a men’s team from the Olgulului Group Ranch will participate in the challenge. In Zimbabwe, a ranger team from Wild is Life will compete, while additional rangers from Malawi and Zimbabwe will take part in the final 21-kilometre race.
The teams may work in different landscapes and face different conservation challenges, but they share a common purpose of protecting wildlife and helping create a future in which animals and people can thrive together.
Their participation also reflects a fundamental part of IFAW’s approach to conservation. Protecting wildlife requires investing in the people who do the work every day.
Rangers patrol vast landscapes, monitor individual animals and wildlife populations, respond to injured and distressed animals, detect wildlife crime, manage incidents of human-wildlife conflict, and work with communities living alongside wildlife. Their knowledge of the animals and landscapes they protect can help conservation teams recognise threats, respond more quickly, and make better decisions.
Yet conservation asks extraordinary things of rangers, often under extremely difficult conditions. Many work far from their families, travel long distances through harsh terrain, and face dangerous wildlife and armed criminals. They may also contend with inadequate housing and equipment, financial insecurity, limited access to healthcare, and the physical and emotional toll of a demanding profession.
The Wildlife Ranger Challenge creates an opportunity to put the people behind conservation outcomes at the centre of the story.
Members of Olgulului Group Ranch prepare for the 2025 Wildlife Ranger Challenge.Photo: © IFAW
Stronger rangers help build stronger conservation
Supporting ranger wellbeing is not separate from protecting wildlife. Rangers who are safe, equipped, trained, connected, and supported are better positioned to protect individual animals, monitor wildlife populations, respond to threats, and build relationships with communities.
That is why IFAW invests in ranger welfare and professional capacity as part of our long-term conservation work.
In Kenya, IFAW supports more than 85 Olgulului Community Wildlife Rangers who help protect wildlife and communities across the Greater Amboseli ecosystem. Support includes salaries, food rations, medical insurance, uniforms, equipment, vehicles, digital radios, vehicle maintenance, and tools to strengthen data collection.
Among them is Team Lioness, one of Kenya’s first all-women community ranger units. Established in 2019 with local community leaders, Team Lioness demonstrates how investment in local people can strengthen conservation while creating opportunities for women to build careers, support their families, and become leaders within their communities.
In Zimbabwe, IFAW has worked with the Zimbabwe Parks and Wildlife Management Authority to strengthen ranger welfare and wildlife protection in Hwange National Park. Long-term investments include equipment, operational support, and infrastructure such as the Makona Ranger Base, which provides an operations centre and housing for rangers and their families.
These investments are part of the same commitment that brings IFAW to the Wildlife Ranger Challenge. We believe rangers deserve safe and decent working conditions, the retheir skills and wellbeing, and recognition for the contribution they make to conservation
The challenge is theirs, but the opportunity to act belongs to everyone
This year, IFAW’s participation in the Wildlife Ranger Challenge will extend beyond the ranger teams taking part on the ground.
From July through September, we will invite supporters around the world to take on challenges of their own and raise funds in support of IFAW’s work with rangers, wildlife, and communities.
Participants might choose to walk, run, hike, cycle, or set another personal goal that requires commitment and accountability. By creating a fundraising page and inviting friends, family members, and colleagues to support their efforts, participants can turn their own challenge into meaningful action for wildlife.
The goal is not to replicate the risks or physical demands rangers face. It is to recognise their commitment by making one of our own and using that commitment to build a wider community of people standing behind them.
You might aim for 21 kilometres over a week or set your own step or distance goal—whatever is most meaningful to you. This also gives you the opportunity to introduce new people to the work of wildlife rangers, raise funds for conservation, and demonstrate that individual actions can contribute to something much larger.
Members of Olgulului Group Ranch prepare for the 2025 Wildlife Ranger Challenge in Kenya.Photo: © IFAW
Follow the journey to 21 kilometres
Over the coming months, we will follow these IFAW-supported ranger teams through the Wildlife Ranger Challenge as they train, complete physical challenges, test their conservation knowledge, and prepare for the final race.
We will share stories from the participating teams, introduce the people behind the uniforms, and explore the landscapes, wildlife, and communities they work to protect. We will hear directly from rangers about the demands of their profession, the importance of teamwork and camaraderie, and what participating in the challenge means to them.
We will also follow IFAW supporters taking on challenges of their own and raising funds alongside ranger teams across Africa.
On 19 September, participating ranger teams will take on the final 21-kilometre race in various locations across Africa. Reaching that starting line will represent months of preparation, teamwork, and commitment, but the work the challenge celebrates continues every day of the year.
The Wildlife Ranger Challenge gives us an opportunity to recognise that commitment, invest in the people protecting wildlife, and build a global community willing to act alongside them.
Rangers show up every day for wildlife. This year, it is our turn to show up for them.
Set your own step, distance, or time goal; create a fundraising page, support a participant, or make a special gift to protect vulnerable wildlife.
Ready? Join the IFAW Move for Wildlife Challenge!
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