For cheetahs in particular, the Cheetah Conservation Fund (http://cheetah.org) is excellent (https://www.charitynavigator.org/index.cfm?bay=search.summar...)

My hometown of Roseburg, Oregon, USA has an AZA-accredited non-profit wildlife park dedicated to education, conservation and research, with an estimable Cheetah program:

http://www.wildlifesafari.net/cheetah.html

"...Wildlife Safari began breeding cheetahs (Acinonyx jubatus) in 1972 and successfully produced a litter the following year. Since then, 178 cheetahs have been born at the park."

My grandfather lived in Roseburg and donated several old horses to the Wildlife Safari! Sadly, I've never been.

Cool place: rather than have the animals in cages, you drive through the park in your car.

We drove down there once from Eugene, and my parents' crappy VW bus, which was always breaking down, broke down right in the middle of the lion area. Luckily, they are equipped for these things and they towed us out.

I'm all for saving wildlife but really the problem in Africa is lack of jobs, education, nutrition and infrastructure. If you fix those problems the wildlife will have a better chance.

I have looked into some of the wildlife charities in the past and many of them have not done as well as one would hope and this is in part because it doesn't really solve the underlying problem.

Yes it is probably outrageous but increased urbanization and education in Africa would be the best thing for Africa.

IMO give money to charities that help build infrastructure, and education.

Even food and agriculture charities will massively help as many have no choice but to eat bushmeat [1].

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bushmeat

So you're suggesting industrialisation to save the environment?

> So you're suggesting industrialisation to save the environment?

There are different levels of industrialization and modernization. Do I think technology can improve things and be more efficient ... I do.

Do I think Africa should become like the early industrial revolution... I do not... But I do think it can have modern cities and that in general it would help... I do.

That is outrageous? In my view you are skirting the truth (consciously or not). We are so concerned with human morality that we can reach conclusions full of sophistry and half truth like this.

Without making a value judgement, the uncomfortable reality is that there are too many people and the most effective policy would be one that addresses human over-population.

Yes people could conceivably reduce their foot print by urbanising, but economic growth also has environmental impact - and probably in some unforeseen ways in the region.

At a high level I agree with you and over the years I admit have become soft or I would argue more open minded and even keeled.

The need for population control policy has been discussed many times on HN. Some argue technology can fix the problem as well as education others are more to the extreme saying we need almost draconian enforcement.

Many scifi writers have explored extreme (and dubious) urbanization which include carbon nano towers (Arthur C Clark Space Odyssey some year I don't remember).

Historically urbanization has a cultural impact on lowering reproduction (source needed but I recall reading it I think in the Economist). That is you may not need as much policy as you might think.

I'm far from an environmentalist extremist, but at some point in time, increasing population density is going to be the only option.

International anti-poaching foundation is good http://www.iapf.org. The founder is a former Australian sniper who teaches local park ranger how to fight poachers.

For this specifically:

http://dewildt.co.za/how-can-i-help/

Cheetah project not far from my home city. They're pretty much the most successful cheetah breeding operation there is. (The habitat situation is dire enough that in captivity breeding is the only viable option left).

Bit annoyed that their site doesn't have a convenient donate button though...will mail them about that.

Not specifically cheetahs and located in South Africa: http://www.lionwhisperer.co.za/ -- YT Channel https://www.youtube.com/user/LionWhispererTV

Caring about big cats that ended up in the US: https://bigcatrescue.org/

World Land Trust - one of their main strategies is funding land purchases to protect habitat and to provide corridors between existing conservation areas.

http://www.worldlandtrust.org/projects/index

(Sir David Attenborough is one of the patrons.)

What good are all those documents in regularly self-destabilizing countrys?

I never understood how you can claim to "own" something like land in some African crisis regions- where the "ownership" totally depends upon the current Regents poplar agenda and is heavily taxed with corruption & extortion.

Who invests into such monetary black holes?

Did you bother to look at the list of countries they work in before you made that comment?

Yes? Lots of south-american countrys (Argentina, Ecuador and Mexico), famous for swallowing helping money and producing geysers of extortion schemes and good intentions being used for as cover story for bad intentions.

Not as bad as some parts of africa though.