Mali Elephant Program’s Nomba Ganamé receives prestigious award

Feb. 26, 2025

by Andre Boraks, Director of Programs and Data

Nomba Ganamé, Head of Field Operations at ICFC's Mali Elephant Project, received the prestigious Prince William Award for Conservation in Africa from His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales. The award ceremony, held at the Savoy in London in November, was attended by Dr. Susan Canney and other project personnel.

This Tusk Conservation Award is given for lifetime achievement to a distinguished individual for their outstanding dedication and exceptional contribution to conservation. Tusk describes Ganamé as "An inspiring leader in the conservation community, Ganamé has dedicated his career to protecting one of the planet’s rarest natural treasures: Mali’s desert-adapted elephants. Under his leadership, the Mali Elephant Project has not only protected a highly vulnerable elephant population but also set an international example for community-driven, sustainable environmental management."

At the award ceremony, Ganamé thanked countless people for their contribution to this project, “but above all, this is a prize for the entire Malian population.” Following the event in London, Ganamé was celebrated with great fanfare upon his return home to Mali. 

ICFC has been a key funder of the project since 2010.

African elephants (Loxodonta africana) living in the Gourma region of central Mali are the northern-most population of elephants on the continent. This specialized group of elephants inhabits the Sahel—an ecological transition zone that connects the Sahara to the more southerly savanna.

Mali elephants have evolved remarkable migratory patterns to navigate the challenges of a long and hot dry season.  Nearly 20 years ago, elephants were fitted with GPS collars to help researchers better understand migratory routes. This showed that Mali elephants move around an area of 32,000 km² — an area slightly larger than Vancouver Island. 

The elephants’ migration route is a learned behaviour that has been honed over millennia in response to the alternating dry and rainy seasons. The herd follows the rains in search of pasture. Later in the year, with the advancing heat of the dry season, Mali’s elephants are increasingly concentrated among the few dwindling water pools, where they face increasing competition with livestock grazing.  

Seeing that resource competition put the desert elephants at great risk, the Mali Elephant Program began in 2007 under the leadership of Dr. Susan Canney of Oxford University and Vance Martin of WILD Foundation. The goal was to ensure the survival of this unique elephant population by developing community-based natural resource management – an approach that protects natural resources for both elephants and people. 

Communities from a wide area of the Gourma region are continuously engaged to develop bespoke interventions that facilitate co-existence and mitigate the risk of human-wildlife conflict.  In a region beset by militant groups, the project has brought remarkable security benefits, as well as livelihood benefits and biodiversity benefits beyond elephants. 

Read more about the award here: 

https://tusk.org/news/introducing-prince-william-award-winner-2024-nomba-ganame/ 

https://tusk.org/news/tusk-conservation-awards-2024-winners/ 

https://www.tuskawards.com/nomba-ganame-2024/ 

See the award film here: