The Landmark Foundation recognises that the intact natural landscapes of Southern Africa region are under threat from irresponsible human activities. These landscapes are now amongst our most treasured landmarks. The threats to these places are the result of land-uses that have degraded the aesthetic value of the areas and the biodiversity patterns and processes contained in them, and in most cases for short-term financial gain. What is required is a landmark change of thinking and behaviour, whereby biodiversity and landscape conservation provides investment returns and benefits to people, that in turn creates incentives for its conservation. The Landmark Foundation will strive to build the conservation economy so that these landscapes can effectively be conserved. The Landmark Foundation was founded in 2004.

The conservation-minded promoters of the Landmark Foundation have been concerned that not enough attention is focussed on direct implementation in the change of land-use to conservation. It is clear that there is a need to focus on a very practical basis on hectares brought into effective biodiversity conservation as a yardstick of success, whether in living landscapes or as pure conservation areas. The number of jobs created by the efforts of the organisation in the building of a conservation economy will be another measure of success. The creation of these jobs will be the surrogate measure of the economic opportunities created by the organisation’s activities.