The Simien Mountains National Park, Ethiopia, is a stunning and fragile ecosystem defined by unusual afro-Alpine and afro-Montane habitat. This high-altitude wonderland is home to a number of endemic species, including the charismatic gelada (Theropithecus gelada), Ethiopian wolf (Canis simensis), and Walia ibex (Capra walia).

Since its designation as a national park in 1966, the SMNP has incurred damages from inflated grazing, cropland development, and, most recently, heavy tourism without matched infrastructural growth.

Our mission

As a non-profit organization, we work in concert with the Ethiopian Wildlife Conservation Authority to ease the burdens placed on the fragile and degrading ecosystem of the SMNP while empowering and assisting local communities.

We host monthly clean-ups at 4 campsites within the park and along the tourist trekking route that simultaneously help remove remarkable accumulations of rubbish and provide regular employment to local people. We are working with the Arizona State University chapter of Engineers Without Borders to establish a local recycling program in Debark, Ethiopia, that will turn the hundreds of thousands of plastic bottles discarded by tourists in the park into items for local consumption and crafts for sale to tourists.

We are a small organization run on donations, and 100% of proceeds go directly to conservation activities (i.e., no organizational overheads). See our page on current activities to view our ongoing projects.