New Williamstown-Based NGO Leads African Wildlife Conservation Efforts

When 10 endangered wild dogs bounded from a holding pen into Botswana’s Central Kalahari this spring, it marked a quiet victory for conservation and a brand new Berkshire-based NGO. Behind the relocation was Xtina Parks, the Williamstown-based photographer, gallery owner, coffee shop co-owner, and newly minted founder of Roam Africa Conservation (RAC), a nonprofit dedicated to protecting African wildlife.

Launched in October with an anonymous $4 million endowment, Roam Africa is based in both Williamstown and Botswana’s Tuli Block (a large wildlife and private game reserve area in the southeastern region of the country). Its mission: to safeguard biodiversity through science, advocacy, and collaboration. “We’re using that very generous seed fund to create community programs, government advocacy, and conservation tactics so we can establish a wildlife corridor,” says RAC Executive Director Bridget Rigas. “It’s putting our money where our mouth is.”

A New Kind of Conservation

Roam Africa’s first focus is the Limpopo-Lipadi Game Reserve, a shareholder-owned wilderness area in Botswana where Parks and her husband, James Parks (co-founder and Chairman of Realty Center Management, Inc.), have been involved since 2016. The reserve is home to a critical rhino sanctuary, protecting animals long targeted by poachers. Through Roam Africa, Parks hopes to expand that work into a larger transboundary wildlife corridor, linking fragmented habitats so elephants, rhinos, and other species can move safely across the habitat.

RAC partners with the Peace Parks Foundation and programs like Herding for Health, which works with rural farmers to reduce human–wildlife conflict. “Rhinos can’t go over humps of a certain height, but everything else can,” explains Rigas. “So if you build small earth mounds instead of fences, you can keep rhinos safe without blocking migration.”

For Rigas, the project’s appeal lies in its mix of practicality and optimism. “In today’s world, to be working toward something that gives back energy is really great,” she says. “We’re a small team, but the impact feels big.”

That impact became visible almost immediately, Rigas says. Already Roam Africa helped coordinate the relocation of a pack of African wild dogs, one of the continent’s most endangered predators. Working with Botswana’s wildlife authorities and veterinarians, they captured 10 animals from Limpopo-Lipadi over the South African border, then air-lifted them to a new protected area deep in a protected reserve.

“We tag them before we release them so we can watch where they go and how they settle,” Rigas says. The reserve’s blog described the effort as “a strategic move to build resilience into Botswana’s wild-dog population.”

Roam Africa’s broader plan includes funding population research and using camera traps and GPS collars to monitor species. The group’s upcoming field session will focus on expanding rhino-sanctuary boundaries and assessing predator–prey dynamics across the corridor.

“February will be our big think-tank session in Botswana,” Rigas says. “We’ve hired a consultant who specializes in conservation standards across Africa to help us map out our long-term goals.”

The Berkshire Connection

For all its global reach, Roam Africa’s headquarters sits above Roam: A Xtina Parks Gallery on Water Street in Williamstown, a two-story hub that also houses Parks’ latest venture, The Coffee Shop. “We have the gallery, the coffee shop, and the nonprofit all within the same block,” Rigas says. “It’s a community in itself.”

Roam began in 2018 on the MASS MoCA campus. The gallery showcased her sweeping wildlife photography, and sold ethically sourced art and crafts from African makers. “We wanted to illuminate the world of wildlife photography and the conservation efforts behind it,” Parks said at the time. The shop soon expanded its collection to include jewelry, sculpture, and textiles by African artists, with profits returning to their studios and villages.

In 2022, when the building on Water Street came up for sale, Parks moved Roam to Williamstown. The new location offered space for exhibits, offices upstairs, and what would soon become a cafe next door. It also created a cultural crossroads between Williams College, the Clark Art Institute, and the town’s small business district.

Rigas recalls, “Xtina saw the property and said, ‘Oh my God, this is the perfect gallery space.’ It was an instant fit.”

Inside Roam today, Parks’s large-scale photographs share walls with vivid paintings, beadwork, and ceramics by African artists she’s met through her travels. The mix is a dialogue between continents. “Every photo print or hand-carved bowl sold here supports a community or conservation effort across the ocean,” says Rigas. Sales have been strong; Parks’s limited-edition prints, produced on fine Vermont paper, sell for $4,000 to $10,000, but prices for gifts throughout the store have a wide range. 

“She has a really good team,” says Rigas, when asked how the Williamstown operations function with Parks global lifestyle. “The gallery director and designer has been with her a long time. It’s run with the same care you’d expect from a museum.”

That complexity of the operation reflects Parks’s career. Before photography, she worked in fundraising and membership for museums, including the Springfield Museums and Los Angeles’s Autry Museum, where she met her husband, a high-level accountant and avid art collector. Together, they have become major supporters of Berkshire cultural institutions: Xtina serves on the boards of the Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts (MCLA) and Hancock Shaker Village, while Jim sits on the board of the Clark Art Institute. The couple also sponsor South African students to study at MCLA.

“Jim and Tina are incredible humans,” says Rigas. “They have means, but they are using their resources to do something truly meaningful.”

The Coffee Shop Next Door

When a neighboring restaurant closed, Parks and Peter MacGillivray of Provisions Wine Store seized the chance to turn the space into Williamstown’s newest cafe. The result, simply called The Coffee Shop, opened this year and quickly filled with students, professors, and locals. Its walls display art from Roam and its shelves stock mugs and ceramics handmade in South Africa.

The atmosphere is steampunk but cozy: couches, armchairs, and a leafy patio. Parks says she loves seeing the space used by the community. The cafe also employs local college students and aims to offer year-round jobs.

A Lifelong Journey

Parks’s road to this moment began with a fall from a horse. A riding accident years ago left her laid up at home, restless and searching for purpose. At the encouragement of her mother, Parks picked up a camera and booked a trip to Africa. The images she brought back, of lions in the Okavango Delta and women carrying water through golden light, launched a second career and a new obsession.

Her photographs evolved from art to advocacy. By 2016 she was investing directly in conservation at Limpopo-Lipadi, buying a small share in the reserve and building an eight-bed lodge whose proceeds support anti-poaching patrols.

“I just think it’s a really great story because it’s happening based here in the Berkshires,” Rigas says. “Our offices above the gallery are coordinating projects thousands of miles away.”

That connection between the Berkshires and Botswana, between creativity and conservation, has become Parks’ legacy. Through her art, philanthropy, and now Roam Africa Conservation, her local initiatives have global impact.