A Helping Hand in Conservation.
Sabine Plattner African Charities (SPAC) focusses on the protection of nature, with an emphasis on the rainforest in the Congo-basin, through education and community-driven empowerment.
Our Founder
Through this private company, she is bringing local and international tourist traffic to Odzala in the Congo Basin and Dzanga-Sangha in the Central African Republic. These private efforts combined with the Hasso Plattner Foundation’s multimillion-euro commitment to Odzala-Kokoua for community health and education initiatives and a gorilla habituation program ensure a balanced coexistence between man and nature, specifically through education and by contributing to saving rainforests in Africa.
Sabine is a regular keynote speaker on various conservation and related educational topics. During the African Leaders Debate at the 2014 World Parks Congress, she emphasised that education is the foundation for the protection of nature and therefore appealed to the world conservation organisations to become the voice to insist that conservation should be integrated into the curricula of all schools. Subsequently, she initiated a curriculum enrichment program, EduConservation, piloting possible ways to enrich the curricula of African countries with Afro-centric conservation content.
Sabine is also the chairperson of the Leadership for Conservation (LCA) with its footprint in more than 20 African countries. The LCA focuses on the protection of selected ecosystems as well as influencing the youth of Africa through traditional and digital media regarding the world climate crisis. Recently she has also taken hands as an investor of the WaterBear Network, focussing on international conservation awareness through the media.
In 2019, Sabine Platter received the “Bundestverdienstkreuz” from the President of Germany and the Medal de Chevalleur from the State President of the Republic of Congo in acknowledgement of her contribution to conservation in the Congo Basin.
…if you do not understand, value or appreciate what nature is delivering to sustain us, how can you conserve it?
Sabine Plattner
Sabine Plattner grew up in Freiburg in post-war Germany where she spent many hours playing in the nearby forests. During that time she developed a deep love for nature and the forests. Growing up with three elder brothers, Sabine learnt early on in life that if you want to be noticed you have to make yourself heard. Not being allowed to study law in the 1960s, Sabine chose to pursue her second love: education. Thus, she became a teacher.
After educating many children as a teacher and, most importantly, seeing to it that her two daughters are well equipped and grounded in this world, she made it her life ambition to ensure a balanced coexistence between man and nature, specifically through education and by contributing to saving rainforests in Africa.
Hence, in 2008 Sabine Plattner founded the Sabine Plattner African Charities gGmbH focusing on child welfare, early childhood development, curriculum development as well as primatology and related research.
In addition to her charitable work, Sabine made it her goal to protect the rainforests in the Congo Basin, specifically the Odzala Kokoua Park in the Republic of Congo. More recently she extended her work to the Dzanga Sangha Reserve in the Central African Republic. She realized that sustainable development work in these remote and scarcely beautiful places in the world is only possible if you engage the local communities by providing them financial security and a purpose by giving them work. Thus, even though she had – and still has – no ambition in tourism, she founded the Congo Conservation Company with the sole aim to support socio-economic development in these regions and to focus the world’s attention on the value of these ecosystems through eco-tourism.
About SPAC
Sabine Plattner wishes to contribute to the protection of nature and the well-being of people. She is convinced that we need significantly higher levels of awareness of the connection between human actions and our impact on our planets rapidly depleting natural resources.
Her resolve is to nurture this awareness firstly amongst teachers and academics, as the multipliers of education, to form part of tuition, with a specific focus at the primary level in schools, thus enabling the youth to make informed decisions.
Vision
The youth of Africa are well-informed and able to balance their daily needs to minimise the depletion of the natural resources, ensuring their own wellness by coexisting harmoniously with nature.
Mission
SPAC influences and supports the conservation of rainforests, wilderness and protected areas in Africa. This we do by supporting the livelihood strategies of local communities, also through education and science, by promoting school curricula with enriched afro-centric conservation-related content, which in turn
provides people with the necessary knowledge to coexisting with nature.
Values
SPAC stands for the respect of people and nature, education for all, informed choices and human-lifestyles balancing people’s needs with available natural resources.