This open access book. provides a synthesis of six projects across ten countries each of
which have been sustained for two or more decades and which illustrate how success can be
achieved regardless of systems of governance of a nation's wealth or of culture. Detailed
narratives are presented on the key personalities that have conceived conducted and concluded
long-term projects: personal stories of vision failure frustration and persistence ultimately
leading to success. The case studies vary widely in their geography and goals. The
single-handed commitment to re-discover the last surviving populations of Giant Sable in the
miombo woodlands of central Angola through the capture translocation and establishment of
robust breeding herds of this magnificent antelope contrasts with the massively funded
three-decade programme with over one hundred participants that reversed the annual loss to
predation by feral cats of 455 000 seabirds from a sub-Antarctic island. Similarly the
foresight of Zimbabwean and Namibian ecologists to place rural communities at the centre of
conservation programmes by giving value to wildlife populations and benefits to local people
transformed a land degradation problem to a socio-ecological solution. Across ten countries
building capacity in botanical collection documentation and herbarium management expanded into
a global project to place the knowledge base of Africa's flora onto an electronic data system
accessible to researchers and conservation planners in even the most remote corners of the
continent. None of these projects enjoyed immediate results. Each required leadership skills
that combined vision a generosity of spirit fortuitous timing and the exploitation of
unexpected opportunities.
