The Robin Hurt Wildlife Foundation, formerly known as the Cullman and Hurt Community Wildlife Project, was founded by Robin A. Hurt with the assistance and contributions of Joseph F. Cullman III in 1990 on the conviction that wildlife and its habitat can only be conserved by involving the local people, and from that involvement, give them a direct benefit from the wildlife among which they live. Local communities would be encouraged to help conserve and protect these
renewable resources.

For a safari operator, intact ecosystems and healthy wildlife populations are its long-term investment; human-poverty is the single greatest threat to that investment.

The project had its origins in the United Republic of Tanzania in 1989. Mr. Hurt's perceptive philosophy of encouraging local communities to take part in conserving their indigenous wildlife as well as benefiting from its utilization was progressive for the time, but is now the basis for many wildlife programs in Tanzania and Community Based Conservation (CBC) and Community Based Natural Resources Management (CBNRM) are words that are now common throughout African conservation circles.

"For wildlife to survive in a changing Africa, it must be a competitive form of land use, benefitting human communities. Without the full support and cooperation of local communities, wildlife in Africa is surely doomed.” – Robin Hurt