“Diane will be remembered by many, as during her years on earth she touched many
lives and made this a better world for people, animals, and the environment.”
Jane Goodall, PhD, DBE

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Diane Skinner

Born in Harare in 1980, Diane Skinner was a respected leading light in African conservation, who sadly succumbed to cancer in 2022 at only 41 years old. Diane leaves behind a stellar legacy of global efforts to conserve painted wolves, chimpanzees, elephants, rhinos, pangolins and other charismatic fauna in Africa.

Through a long body of work addressing international policy, community conservation and NGO interventions, Diane continually navigated the delicate, ever-fraught balance of human/ wildlife conflict, always striving for those win-win solutions that safeguard endangered species but also benefit local community needs.

A proud Zimbabwean, Diane graduated summa cum laude from Denison University, Ohio to commence her career with the Jane Goodall Institute in 2003 in Washington DC, before getting a Masters in Science, Society and Development with distinction at the University of Sussex.

Moving to Kenya in 2008, Diane managed IUCN’s African Elephant Specialist Group, co-ordinating elephant conservation across the continent and co-authored the last comprehensive African Elephant Status Report in 2016.

She returned to Zimbabwe to become a highly sought after conservation consultant before becoming a co-founder of the Painted Wolf Foundation and the lead author on the publication, Securing the Future of the Painted Wolf.