Mountains And Plains Institute For Lifelong Learning And Service Inc

National park boundaries have separated local people from wildlife, both physically and psychologically, to the extent that human communities no longer know how to coexist with wildlife and do not perceive any benefit of protecting wild animals. This growing divide threatens the lives of humans and wildlife species, particularly elephants. The goal of our Ruaha National Park, Tanzania visitation program is to begin repairing the disconnect between humans and wildlife, by offering local people the opportunity to directly benefit from living near wildlife in the most intuitive and perhaps meaningful way possible: through personal experience. This program increases peoples' opportunities to enjoy positive experiences with wild animals, and has begun a foundation of support for wildlife conservation among local people. Over 1,000 individuals were served in 2024 in visitations, and nearly 1,100 local residents attended 20 educational movie nights in 16 villages. Other projects included erecting and maintaining 8 farm based bee hive fences, and introducing sustainable poultry farms.

Educational Travel Programs are provided in association with Elderhostel Inc., DBA Road Scholar a non-profit organization. In 2024, 345 individuals participated in 17 programs located across Colorado and Eastern Utah.

Mountains and Plains Institute was honored to serve as the fiscal sponsor for a UK based charitable project operating in the African country of Malawi. The grant for this came from ZooMiami. The project is The Malawi Bat Conservation Project.