This Lady Is Saving the Last of Various Species – Meet Amy Aucamp-Clark

A few weeks ago I met up with Amy Aucamp-Clark – the founder and managing director of Scales Conservation Fund. I asked Amy if I could interview her for our Inspiration page as someone who is making a difference in South African conservation every day.

All photographs supplied by Amy.

If you can, please help Scales by donating here.

Amy first came out to South Africa from England as a volunteer on a project in the Cape focusing on data capture around baboon, human conflict research. Sadly the project it doesn’t exist anymore and she can’t for the life of her remember what it was called, but admittedly it was about 15 years ago now!

I asked Amy to tell me how she ended up here in South Africa helping other conservation oriented non-profit organisations fulfil their charters. Here’s her story, in her own words.

So long story short, when I left school I got into the kitchen trade, chefing, cooking, that sort of thing and became the kitchen manager at a pub chain. After a while I decided I didn’t want to be in a little white [kitchen] box for the rest of my life.

I’d always had a passion for animals, and I’d always wanted to come to Africa. So I found this research project which was based in Betty’s Bay, booked to join it, was there for 10 months, and just fell in love with South Africa.

Whilst volunteering I did a safari around SA with the other volunteers and Craig Spencer the manager of the project – and that’s how I discovered Hoedspruit!

I then went back to England, and it was the most bizarre thing getting homesick for somewhere that wasn’t originally home.

One day I was speaking to Craig and he found me a job to work at a lodge in the kitchen there – something totally away from conservation, but at least back in Africa!

I started working at Ezulwini River Lodge in 2007 and then from there decided I needed to get out of the kitchen, again! It had just been my way into South Africa.

So I went and did a one-year FGASA course with EcoTraining. After graduating I went back to the lodge and they let me do some guiding with them.

After a couple of years, I decided that I wanted to get more into the conservation side of things. I was very lucky to have known Craig Spencer for a long time. He had also relocated to the area, with a plan to set up a new volunteer project within Balule.

So I left the lodge to work with him and together we set up Transfrontier Africa – a volunteer project within Balule.

Initially we focused on big five data capture and general day to day conservation work such as fixing erosion and alien vegetation removal. It was a small project in the beginning, but quickly grew as did our responsibilities within the reserve.

I worked with Craig on that project for close to 10 – 12 years and Transfrontier Africa grew from a small local project working with volunteers in on the ground conservation in this little area of Olifants West, to the point where Craig became the Head Warden of Balule, which then gave us a far larger area to manage.

black-rhino-monitoring-balule — Monitoring Black Rhino in Balule

bush-babies-education-program — Bush Babies Educational Programme

elephant-collaring-elephants-alive — Collaring elephants with Elephants Alive

tracking-unit-on-rhino — Replacing a Tracking Unit on a Rhino

Through Transfrontier Africa we founded the Black Mamba’s anti-poaching unit and the Bush Babies Environmental Education Programme, which Scales continues to support.

With the success of the Black Mambas and Bush Babies Environmental Programme I found I was getting increasingly tied down in the office with admin and I wanted to do more, but not be tied to my desk. At this point in time the crisis with pangolin poaching was starting to pick up and I really wanted to try and get involved with that.

This is where the name Scales initially came from.

My skill set within conservation grew through my experience with Transfrontier Africa. In my final years with the organisation, I was focused more on the fundraising side of things, working with donors, handling volunteer bookings and that sort of thing.

There is so much work within non-profit organisations, and fundraising is always left until the last minute as there is never enough time in the day to get the work done and seek out the funding to get it done. So that’s one of the reasons why I decided that Scales must essentially become a fundraising entity to help projects that already exist.

I didn’t see the point in starting yet another organisation doing something on the ground when there are already so many existing organisations. Everyone’s doing their own little bit, which is great. But you could do so much more if efforts were combined. That’s my theory anyway.

So Scales helps with raising funds and awareness and working with existing projects that are ethical, and are doing what they actually say they are doing. Through our fundraising efforts, we help them to do what it is that they need to do and also put them in touch with other similar organisations. So I guess you could say that Scales is a combination of funding and networking.

bat-rehab-specialists — ReWild Rehabilitation Centre

rewild-rehabilitation — South African Bat Rehabilitation Specialists

equipment-donation — Handing over an aviation head set to Flying for Rhinos in 2019

rhino-task-team — The Rhino Task Team conducts a vehicle search at a routine road block

pangolin-fund — The Scales Pangolin Rescue Fund

Scales’ remit focuses on Protection, Education and Rehabilitation. It does this by providing funds for a number of projects including The Bushbabies Environmental Education Project, the Pangolin Rescue Fund, the Rhino Task Team and ReWild Rehabilitation Centre.

Coupled with direct overseas fundraising and online donations, Scales holds various events throughout the year – from a dodgeball tournament at the sports arena at Thirsty Giraffe, to a ‘Wild’ Easter egg hunt, to the annual Walk for Wildlife event held towards the end of the year.

Last year, the walk fell on Halloween and garnered the support of over 260 ghoulish and ghostly walkers!

Scales is lucky to have a very good relationship with the Thirsty Giraffe who assists them with all their fundraising events, be it sponsoring drinks, sweets, prizes or general support at the big event.

Read about others that inspire us and keep an eye out for a new profile every week, where we celebrate the men and women who love, enjoy and ultimately help to protect our wild spaces!