Impact Report 2025
Conservation only works when it works for people.
In 2025, Space for Giants proved that truth at a scale we have never before achieved. Across Africa, our teams delivered conservation outcomes that transformed landscapes, protected wildlife, and changed the daily lives of tens of thousands of people.
What We Do
Space for Giants is an international conservation organisation that protects Africa’s remaining wild landscapes and the large animals they depend on, while building real value for local communities and national governments. We work across Africa, increasingly as the technical partner governments turn to when protecting wildlife also means protecting people’s lives and livelihoods. The organisation exists because conservation that ignores the people living alongside wildlife eventually fails, and conservation that includes them can last for generations.
“2025 was the year we developed our new conservation model and positioned to scale”
In Gabon, we crossed a threshold no Human-Elephant Conflict programme in the world had ever reached. Two thousand mobile electric fences, deployed across 47 of Gabon’s 49 districts, protecting over 33,000 subsistence farmers and their dependants. A USD 4.5 million grant from the Central African Forest Initiative confirmed what we have long known: this model works, and the world is taking notice.
In Uganda, Nubian Giraffes are thriving once more in Pian Upe Wildlife Reserve, a species poached to extinction in the reserve within living memory. A 40-year carbon agreement with the Uganda Wildlife Authority positions the reserve as a cornerstone of the continent’s emerging green economy. In Kenya, the andBeyond Suyian Lodge opened in July, establishing the most significant tourism revenue stream for a conservancy that now employs over 250 people, more than 75% drawn from neighbouring communities.
None of this is simple. None of it is cheap. And none of it is inevitable. Conservation at this scale requires sustained belief, from governments, from partners, and from supporters like you.
At the heart of everything we do lies one unshakeable truth: conservation only works when it works for people. 2025 proved that truth. Now we must build on it.
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For decades, protecting Africa’s wildlife has meant choosing, fencing people out to let animals survive, or pushing animals out to let people survive. We refused that choice.
For years, we have worked to find a way for people, wildlife, and land to thrive alongside each other, not in spite of one another. We call it Coexistence Infrastructure: conservation built so that protecting wildlife, protecting people’s livelihoods, and protecting the land they share are never in competition with each other. Across the countries we work, three things happened at once in 2025.
Fewer crop losses. Safer nights. Stronger harvests.
More than 2,200 farmers requested fences for their own land. Trust, demonstrated in demand.
What started as our projects became government policy.
What follows is not a list of separate achievements. It is evidence of one idea, repeated across projects, programmes, and countries: when conservation works for people, it works for wildlife, and it works for the land that sustains them both. That is the model we are building towards for the rest of this decade.
Impact Numbers 2025
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Beyond Africa
Space for Giants’ core mission is rooted in Africa. In 2025, the expertise built over more than a decade of African conservation was also called upon beyond the continent.
In 2025, we supported the Royal Commission for AlUla in Saudi Arabia with a focused programme of ranger training and protected area management. Over 18 months, 156 rangers were trained across six nature reserves, EarthRanger was deployed as the first such platform in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, and four peer-reviewed research manuscripts were completed on carbon sequestration in hyper-arid landscapes. This engagement reflects the growing international relevance of the skills and systems we have developed in Africa, and our commitment to sharing that expertise where it can make a meaningful difference.
Funding Protection That Lasts
Conservation that endures needs finance that endures. In 2025 we spent more than we received, a deliberate investment of reserves in a year of acceleration, while building the enterprise income that will make this work self-sustaining.
Where Our Funding Came From
Total income in 2025 was USD 7.72 million. More than half came from donations and grants, USD 4.41 million, led by major institutional support for Gabon and Uganda, including the Central African Forest Initiative grant secured in partnership with the Government of Gabon and the Wildlife Conservation Society. A further USD 2.00 million came from conservation consultancy and charitable activities, principally the specialist programme with the Royal Commission for AlUla in Saudi Arabia. And USD 1,206,394, 16 per cent of all income, came from conservation enterprise: the lodge, cattle, and land management operations that turn protected landscapes into self-funding ones.
Where Every Dollar Went
Of the USD 8.36 million spent in 2025, 84 cents in every dollar went directly to conservation. Human and elephant coexistence was the largest single investment at USD 3.92 million, more than half of all conservation spending and a 61 per cent increase on 2024, reflecting the scale-up in Gabon and Uganda. Securing and managing protected landscapes accounted for a further USD 2.40 million, with the balance advancing conservation science, wildlife law and justice, carbon development, and the Giants Club.
The Enterprise Turn
The most important financial story of 2025 is a change in how the work is funded. Income from conservation enterprise grew by 83 per cent, led by Suyian Conservancy, where the business generated USD 1,293,479 in income, recorded net income of USD 425,686, and closed the year with positive net assets for the first time. Lodge occupancy averaged 56 per cent in its opening months, well ahead of expectations. This is the model working: a landscape beginning to pay for its own protection.
An Honest Balance
The year closed with total funds of USD 9.84 million and a net deficit of USD 404,082. Supporting Suyian Conservancy to become “rhino ready” and continuing the work of restoring Pian Upe Wildlife Reserve. The draw on reserves was deliberate, matching the pace of a year in which programmes in Gabon, Uganda, and Kenya all accelerated at once. Rebuilding unrestricted income, the flexible funding that lets us act quickly and invest where the need is greatest, is a central priority for 2026, and it is where your support matters most.
Financial figures are drawn from the consolidated financial statements of Space for Giants for the year ended 31 December 2025, which were unaudited at the time of publication. Figures are reported in pounds sterling and converted here at the 2025 average rate of £1 = US$1.32. The audited annual report and accounts are filed with the Charity Commission for England and Wales.
Building a Movement Beyond the Field
The work of protecting Africa’s remaining wild landscapes does not happen only in reserves, along fence lines, or in government offices. It also happens in the conversations that take place between conservation and the wider world, with donors, policymakers, partners, and the public. In 2025, we invested in those conversations deliberately, using events and campaigns to grow our supporter community, deepen existing relationships, and introduce the mission to new audiences.
On 16 July 2025, andBeyond Suyian Lodge opened its doors on Suyian Conservancy, welcoming its first guests to 44,000 acres of private wilderness in the heart of Laikipia. The opening marked more than a tourism milestone. It was a public demonstration of the central argument: conservation can be economically productive while keeping land wild. Owned by the Suyian Conservancy Trust and managed under a plan approved by the Kenya Wildlife Service, the conservancy brings wildlife protection, regenerative ranching, community livelihoods, and responsible tourism together in a single model, with andBeyond holding sole tourism rights across the concession. As Trust Protector and strategic conservation partner, Space for Giants helped position Suyian Conservancy as a living example of how private land, tourism revenue, ecological restoration, and local employment can work together to secure a landscape for the long term, where every guest who stays contributes directly to its protection.
“The opening of andBeyond Suyian Lodge marks a major milestone in Space for Giants’ mission to make Suyian Conservancy a self-financing engine for nature conservation. We are proud to partner with andBeyond to demonstrate how world-class tourism can sustain vital conservation efforts while delivering tangible benefits to local communities. When guests stay at this lodge, they directly support the protection of wildlife and the wellbeing of the people who share this landscape.”
London, United Kingdom
We brought our mission into one of the United Kingdom’s most influential institutional settings in 2025, hosting an event at the House of Lords that gathered leaders across conservation, policy, philanthropy, and public life. The evening helped position Space for Giants as both an effective conservation organisation and a serious institutional voice on the future of landscape protection, speaking to the systems needed to secure nature at scale, from conservation finance and political leadership to community partnership and long-term ecological governance.
“Protecting Africa’s remaining wild landscapes requires more than field action. It requires leadership, influence, and the commitment of people with the power to help shape what comes next.”
In May 2025, Global Supporter Lily James hosted an intimate dinner in London in support of our mission, generously sponsored by long-standing partner Chantecaille and held at La Maison Ani. The evening brought together philanthropy, culture, and conservation, introducing our work to new audiences while deepening commitment among existing supporters. It was a demonstration of what values-aligned partnership can achieve: conservation reaching further, into new rooms and new networks, carried by voices people already trust.
“When influential voices and committed partners come together, conservation reaches further, into new rooms, new networks, and new forms of support.”
June 2025 saw the first gathering of our New York Chapter, a significant step in building a stronger, more rooted community of support in the United States. The evening brought together hosts, donors, committee members, and friends of ours in a moment rooted in purpose and generosity. More than a fundraising event, the New York Chapter launch created a lasting platform for engagement, giving supporters in the United States a clearer way to connect with the work, champion the mission, and help grow future support across one of our most important donor markets.
“Community is one of conservation’s most powerful assets. The New York Chapter gives supporters a way to stand closer to the mission and help protect Africa’s wild spaces for generations to come.”
In September 2025, we joined BGC Charity Day, with Global Supporter Lily James joining our team on the trading floor to raise vital funds and awareness for the protection and restoration of Africa’s last remaining wild spaces. The event placed us alongside other causes, using one of the City of London’s most high-profile corporate fundraising platforms to connect business networks, public figures, and philanthropy around an urgent global issue. It was a powerful example of how conservation can find new champions in unexpected places.
“BGC Charity Day showed how business networks, public figures, and supporters can come together to help protect the natural world.”
Across 2025, these events and campaigns did more than raise funds. They built a stronger global community around the mission, bringing conservation into influential rooms, introducing the work to new audiences, and giving supporters tangible ways to act. Most importantly, they helped reinforce a central truth: protecting Africa’s remaining wild landscapes requires collective action, long-term investment, and people willing to stand with giants.
The People Behind the Protection
Behind every fence, every ranger, and every hectare recovered stands a community of people who chose to make it possible.
To the governments who trusted us as partners in their most important landscapes. To the institutions and foundations whose grants carried the largest programmes through their most ambitious year. To the corporate partners who lent this work their platforms, their creativity, and their conviction. To the philanthropists whose generosity moved first and reached furthest. And to every individual who gave what they could because they believe wild Africa is worth protecting: thank you.
You built this. The fences that kept families and elephants safely apart through another season. The rangers on patrol tonight in Pian Upe. The giraffes returning to plains that had lost them. The boreholes, the classrooms, the first guests arriving at a lodge that pays for a landscape’s protection. These things exist because you decided they should.
Conservation only works when it works for people. It begins with people too. On behalf of every community we serve, and every animal in these landscapes that will never know your name, thank you.
Every gift, at every level, made this year possible. We recognise our partners and funders by name.
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They need protection that lasts, that is sustained, for the people who live alongside them, for the wildlife that depends on them, for the land that holds them both. In 2025, we built the infrastructure, the partnerships, and the policy designed to make that a possibility, not protection for a season, but protection built to endure.