PEOPLE • PLACES • PLANET
Keeping bees, marketing local delicacies, and starting village B&Bs are just some of the ways African communities are unlocking the potential of the continent’s wildlife economy. But while pursuing these and other wildlife-centred ventures they must guard against politicians meddling in their affairs.
A day in the sun at a rotting carcass surrounded by lions may not be everyone’s idea of a successful day at the office, but for Dr Andrea Webster, faeces from different species provides valuable clues about how pollutants can affect wildlife populations in protected areas. Dr Webster is a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Pretoria’s Mammal Research Institute and recent recipient of a PD scholarship from the Oppenheimer Chair for Emerging Scientists in Non-invasive Wildlife Research Programme.
Game meat is increasingly being publicised as a sustainable food choice that can ensure wildlife conservation while also injecting funds into the economy and providing opportunities for community livelihood creation.
Looked at one way it’s a game reserve. In another, it’s a vast cattle ranch. Or prime rangeland. Whichever way one looks at it, Shangani Holistic, in the Zimbabwe midlands, lives up to its name, fusing all the elements of its ecosystem so that each flourishes to the benefit of the others.
A recent commentary by Renato A. F. de Lima and 25 colleagues from a range of countries presents a call for recognising the massive intellectual, financial, and personal investment made by people collecting field ecological data globally. They argue that the international push to make forest plot data “FAIR” (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable) has made the situation more UNFAIR, by degrading the rights and opportunities of those who invested in collecting the data.
Carbon credits trade in carbon emissions or savings and have been proposed as a way of balancing profit with combating climate change. This sounds like a win-win situation. But is it a one-size-fits all solution to global warming? The third in our Tipping Points webinar series tackled the question: “Green gold or green gremlin: Can carbon credits really work for Africa?” Speakers Professor Sally Archibald, Barney Kgope and Dorothy Naitore gave their perspectives on the matter.
Tipping Points returned this March for our second webinar in the series. The speakers, Dr Andy Cunliffe and Mthokozisi Moyo tackled the question, “How does landscape-scale research contribute to climate conversations?”
While the UK government has been considering a ban on imports of hunting trophies, the South African government recently approved an annual maximum quota of ten legal trophy hunts of endangered black rhinos for 2022. South Africa has permitted white rhino hunts, without quota limits, since 1972.
How do we steer a path towards Africanfuturism, away from colonial narratives of what is fit for Africa? Laura Pereira (with insight from her colleagues) argues that retrieving indigenous knowledge through storytelling and exploring transdisciplinary visioning in Africa allow for a more radical way of thinking about possible sustainable futures.