Fertile grasslands choked by encroaching acacia bush overgrowth damage native plant and animal species diversity. Since 1940, 40 million hectares of grassland, roughly the size of Montana, have become overgrown by dense thorny plant species like the acacia bush, limiting access to prey needed for their very survival.

“The world’s fastest land animal is in trouble. The cheetah, formerly found across much of Africa, the Middle East and the Indian subcontinent, has been extirpated from at least 27 countries and is now on the Red List of threatened species.” Read more.

Black-thorn acacia (Acacia mellifera): This plant grows as either a V-shaped, deciduous shrub or a single-stemmed tree with a rounded crown, growing two to eight meters high. While the thorns may be quite troublesome to native species, the biggest concern is overgrowth or “bush encroachment” transforming open savannah into tangled, unnavigable forests of life-choking vegetation. Harvesting and converting bush overgrowth into charcoal both helps the economic livelihood of Namibians and improves the chances for survival of native free-ranging wildlife.