Prof Francis Vorhies

Director & Professor Extraordinary

Bio

A distinguished expert in conservation economics and finance, Dr Francis (Frank) Vorhies is the Director and Co-Founder of AWEI and an Extraordinary Professor in the Faculty of AgriSciences at Stellenbosch University. Dr Vorhies is also Research Associate at the Wildlife Conservation Research Unit (WILDCRU) at the University of Oxford and at the Vinson Centre at the University of Buckingham.

His lifelong commitment to sustainable development and conservation in Africa and beyond has seen him take up and develop several innovative initiatives and roles, including founding Eco-Plus in Johannesburg to provide economic policy inputs to conservation; joining the African Wildlife Foundation in Nairobi to build regional capacity in the economics of biodiversity; appointment as the first chief economist at the IUCN HQ in Geneva; CEO of the Earthwatch Institute in Oxford; and Academic Director of the African Leadership University's School of Wildlife Conservation in Kigali.

@AWEI

Frank has been the AWEI Director since its inception in 2018; He is an ex-officio member of AWEI's Board and also a member of its Management Committee. In addition, to establishing and developing the Institute, he has a particular interest in the impact of international policy on Africa's wildlife economy, the opportunity for increasing intra-African trade in wildlife products, and the role that sustainability standards can play to facilitate the entry of wildlife products into global value chains.

In 2025, he will also be exploring the place of wildlife in the history of economic thought and the potential for offering professional short courses on aspects of the wildlife economy.

Selected outputs

• 2024 - Elephant in the room - Why a trophy hunting ban would hurt conservation and development
• 2024 - Scaling up Africa's elephant economy
• 2023 - Changing tides and Africa's blue economy
• 2023 - Sustainable wildlife use as an area-based conservation measure
• 2022 -- The newly adopted Global Biodiversity Framework supports Africa’s wildlife economy
• 2022 - CITES, AfCFTA, and Livelihoods - Implications of the COP19 Appendices Proposals
• 2021 - State of the wildlife economy in Africa 
• 2021 - Discussion paper on Kenya’s wildlife economy
• 2021 - Coastal blue carbon stocks in Tanzania and Mozambique
• 2019 - Biodiversity means business: Reframing global biodiversity goals for the private sector
• 2018 - Increasing success and effectiveness of mangrove conservation investments