Encouraging co-operation and co-ordination in the professional management of fish and wild life resources and consolidating and representing the views of conservation and interested parties to all levels of government departments and controlling bodies.
Developing coalitions and co-ordination among conservation and interested organisations to promote fish and wild life interests.
Promoting the sustainable use of natural resources.
Creating public awareness of the various efforts and concerns of the ZCTF in the interests of sustainable fish and wild life resources.

Johnny was born in Santa Cruz, Madeira in 1949 and moved to Zimbabwe (then Rhodesia) at the age of 5, where he grew up on a farm in Zimbabwe. He became fluent in the African languages and fully conversant with the African customs at a very young age. By 1974, the liberation war was under way in Zimbabwe and Johnny was asked to join the Selous Scouts. He remained with them for the duration of the war. When Robert Mugabe won the elections in 1980, all the Selous Scouts were told to leave the country immediately and the South Africans took advantage of the situation by recruiting them for their Special Forces to assist in their war. Johnny and Cheryl and their two small daughters, Lorraine and Brigitte, moved to the army camp in Phalaborwa, South Africa where Johnny served the South African army for the following 5 years. Their son, Shane was born in South Africa in 1983. By 1985, they heard that things in Zimbabwe had calmed down quite a bit and being homesick, they decided to go home. Johnny started a garage in Zimbabwe, repairing vehicles and the business thrived for the next 10 years, enabling him to educate his children and keep food on the table. However, the economic situation in Zimbabwe started deteriorating in 1995 and the business was suffering so he decided to buy a 30 ton truck and start a transport company. In 2000, Johnny had a spate of bad luck. Although the company was doing quite well, it was not doing well enough to pay the exorbitant insurance premiums on the trucks so when one truck was written off in an accident and another was hijacked in South Africa and never recovered, he was not able to replace them. Around that time the land invasions began and he started hearing about the slaughter of the wildlife. He was extremely concerned that one day there would be no animals left in Zimbabwe so he started the Zimbabwe Conservation Task Force to try and preserve the wildlife. Johnny has been running the Zimbabwe Conservation Task Force since its inception in 2001, using donations from concerned people to relocate animals under threat, to buy veterinary medication, to remove snares from animals and to expose the ongoing atrocities to the rest of the world.

Cheryl Rodrigues was born in 1956 in Harare, Zimbabwe and showed a flair for art and music from a very young age. She started playing the keyboards by ear at the age of 5 and at the age of 14, acquired a piano accordion which she learnt to play by ear. She studied art at school up to first year "A" level but other than that, had no formal training in either art or music. She married Johnny in 1974 and together they had 3 children, Lorraine, Brigitte and Shane. Up until 3 years ago, Cheryl specialized in pastel portraits, supplementing the family's income. In 2001, her husband Johnny formed the Zimbabwe Conservation Task Force which was initially comprised of a group of concerned Zimbabweans who decided to do something positive about the unacceptable levels of poaching of wildlife in Zimbabwe. As a way of raising money for their anti-poaching patrols, Cheryl started painting wildlife in oils and donating the proceeds to the wildlife fund.

Cheryl and Johnny's long awaited son Shane was born in 1983. By the age of 5, he was astounding everybody with his three-dimensional drawings. At this early age, he would sit on an old tyre at his father's garage and stare for hours at a truck or a car or some engine parts and then when he went home he would reproduce what he had seen on paper in perfect detail. He drew everything down to the last nut and bolt and he was able to draw subjects accurately from any angle in three dimensions.
Shane achieved distinctions at "A" level in art and technical graphics at school and won several awards for these subjects throughout his school career. Not to be outdone by his sister, at the age of 16, he won the Zimbabwe National Flame Lily poster competition. More recently, wanting to assist with funds for the Zimbabwe Conservation Task Force, Shane began doing stunning pencil sketches of African wildlife. He is currently studying computer graphics at the Zimbabwe Institute of Digital Arts. Shane created the logo art for ZCTF.

Lorraine is Cheryl and Johnny's first child, born In 1975. The family was pleasantly surprised to discover that Lorraine also displayed an artistic flair at an early age and helped her develop her talent. Cheryl gave Lorraine full use of her expensive art equipment and allowed her to "help" with any art work she was busy with before she was old enough to read and write. This of course meant that Cheryl spent a lot of time correcting mistakes on the quiet, but it gave Lorraine a feeling of importance and confidence to be allowed to put her mark on her mother's paintings. She has now become an outstanding artist in her own right. At the age of 14, she won Zimbabwe's National "Flame Lily" art competition and was presented with a certificate by Sally Mugabe.
Lorraine is using her talents to assist her father's organization by doing oil paintings of wildlife, also donating the proceeds to the wildlife fund. In 1994, Lorraine married Gavin Randall and in 1998 their daughter Kylie was born. Kylie is also displaying strong artistic tendencies.

Brigitte is Johnny and Cheryl's second child. She was born deaf in 1978 and had to undergo surgery to correct her hearing in 1981. Not long after the surgery Brigitte showed some potential for becoming a good musician. She began picking out popular tunes and playing them accurately by ear on keyboard. Over the years she has participated in numerous theatre shows, singing, dancing, acting, playing piano and doing the musical direction for one of them. She has been the lead singer, and, in some instances, the musical co-ordinator of live bands. She did session singing on many advertising jingles and was a music teacher for seven years. Brigitte has been busy in 2005 completing 64 studio recordings of traditional celtic songs with her musical partner, David Scobie, a thorough-bred Scotsman who grew up in Scotland on Celtic traditional music. (Brigitte derives her Scottish roots from her mother's side of the family.) The collective name of their band is Brogue. The music is aimed at both helping towards her father's conservation efforts and prolonging public interest in traditional Scottish melodies and poems by reinterpreting, rearranging and updating them. At www.broguemusic.com you can find out more about Brogue and listen to short demos of their songs online. When she finds time, aside from performing and recording, Brigitte also does art. She has contributed wildlife paintings towards her dad's charity as well.

Karrie Kern joined ZCTF in 2007 during the Tusker crisis, becoming CEO of US Operations in 2008. Her background is over 15 years of marketing and public relations, opening Harris Consulting in 2000 based in Austin, Texas, and 20 years as a advocate for marine life. Ms. Kern is commited to ZCTF both on the ground in Zimbabwe and in the US. Since coming on board she has sucessfully established a working relationship between ZCTF and United Nations Mission of the Republic of Zimbabwe, and launched an intensive education program on wildlife and the importance of conservation in Africa which has to date reached over five hundred American children. She looks forward to travling between the United States and Zimbabwe.

Patrick's (from Scotland) involvement with conservation began back in 1972 when he sent off his first donation to the WWF (failed) "Project Tiger". At age 12 he volunteered weekends and school holidays at the local zoo, where he got to see exotic species up close. That led to a greater interest in "Animal Welfare" alongside the more obvious Animal Husbandry that accompanies zoo work. Further paid employment followed at zoos and wildlife parks in England (working with Asian Elephants, Large Carvivores, and Primates). Following on, he has worked for the Royal Society for the Protection of Animals (RSPCA) as Animal Hospital Technician, Animal Ambulance Officer, and Wildlife Officer. He has run a local chapter for Greenpeace and was the UK coordinator for Sea Shepherd Conservation Society for a number of years. He has certificates of Proficiency in Animal Hospital Proceedures, a diploma in Marine Life Studies, is a trained Marine Mammal Medic (British Divers Marine Life Rescue), and have been awarded the RSPCA "Disaster medal" for his work rescueing wildlife during a tanker oil spill in Wales in 1996.