Saving precious wildlife by putting people first

Jonathan Tager, the CEO of groupelephant.com, was traumatised in 2014 by an incident involving captive elephants at an elephant-back safari operation in Limpopo.

It was a turning point in the way he and his colleagues did business.

"It opened our eyes to the plight of elephants in captivity, and in the wild. That, together with the ongoing rhino crisis, led us to realise that we had to do something," said Tager, who leads groupelephant.com from its headquarters in Singapore.

Tager and senior colleagues developed an in-house nonprofit operation funded by a percentage of the revenue generated by the company, which employs more than 1,500 people in 22 countries.

Their first nonprofit initiative - ERP: Elephants, Rhinos and People - aims to improve the welfare of elephants and rhinos through the alleviation of poverty in rural areas.

block_quotes_start If we forget about the people through whom poachers get access to the parks, there is no point in pursuing the protection of rhino block_quotes_end

The name is a play on enterprise resource planning, which lies at the heart of their for-profit technology business.

"Community development work is central to the approach, rather than being a necessary add-on, as often happens in conservation work," Tager said.

The company funds the nonprofit's overheads, ongoing projects and manages external donations.

This allows ERP to make quick decisions and sidestep the funding and bureaucratic pitfalls facing conventional nonprofit organisations.

Tager said: "If someone phones us this afternoon and says we need to rescue a rhino, we can. We can take risks and make speedy decisions.

"Our goal is to do our own nonprofit delivery to the same professional standard as our business."

The Haas School of Business at the University of California Berkeley recognised groupelephant.com's hybrid (profit and nonprofit) model in a case study published this year.

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Through its poverty alleviation arm, ERP is expanding training and jobs, supporting projects like the Waterberg Waves community radio station in Vaalwater, Limpopo.

In its dim studio, volunteers are on air 24/7 broadcasting music, news and educational programmes about safe sex, heritage and other topics relevant to the Blouberg, Makgabeng, Senwabarwana communities.

ERP Limpopo co-ordinator Lesiba Frans Masibe said the station reached about 25,000 people in the township and 5,000 on farms.

He said: "If we forget about the people through whom poachers get access to the parks and there are no sustainable economic opportunities for them, there is no point in pursuing the protection of rhino."

The double-storey building in Vaalwater that houses the radio station is being developed to include a youth centre which will offer IT training and an internet cafe.

ERP also creates and manages investments in sustainable community-owned ecotourism.

Plans are under way to partner with provincial parks to ensure they become havens for rhinos and elephants and improve prospects for tourism.

But Tager is clear that job creation cannot be limited to lodges and parks.

Among a raft of ideas, he and his colleagues are considering training people from the rural area of Blouberg to assemble a fleet of aircraft from kits, in support of anti-poaching efforts in southern Africa.

"Think 'ERP Air Force', with drones and piloted aircraft. A drone trial programme is now under way," he said.

The company's nonprofit programme (under the banner "Beyond Corporate Purpose") is designed to be expanded.

"At the moment we're focusing only on ERP. If we achieve success, maybe we'll launch other programmes - think whales, sharks and dolphins."

Tager believes sentient creatures should never be in captivity and hopes ERP will soon be able to free the elephants that set him on this path.