Brownbag 1: Implementing Bushmeat Solutions around Tsavo National Park, Kenya
Presented by: Mr. Iregi Mwenja
Senior Bushmeat Project Coordinator for the East African Wildlife Society in Kenya and BEAN Field Officer
Innovative new efforts funded by the USFWS Wildlife Without Borders-Africa and other partners to reduce the illegal bushmeat trade in Tsavo ecosystem in Kenya. Mwenja is developing protein and income alternative projects with communities outside of Tsavo West National Park. He is combining these activities with new bushmeat education efforts specifically tailored to the local communities to enable them to understand the linkages of the illegal bushmeat trade on wildlife populations and ecosystem health.
Brownbag 2: The Dzanga-Sangha Project, Central African Republic: Anthropological & Ecological Perspectives on Wildlife Hunting, Commerce, and Conservation [link forthcoming]
Presented by:
Carolyn A. Jost, doctoral candidate in the Department of Anthropology at Purdue University and
Lesley Daspit, doctoral candidate in anthropology at Purdue University
The Dzanga-Sangha Project is one of the first examples of an ICDP in the Congo Basin. This protected area is co-managed by WWF and the government of the Central African Republic. Daspit and Jost spent 18 months at this field site collecting research for their dissertations in anthropology. In this presentation, the two researchers integrate their multiple ecological and ethnographic data sets in order to discuss the current state of wildlife in this region. Additionally, data spanning a 15-year period is examined to detect changes in wildlife populations throughout park and reserves sectors. Based on their findings, Daspit and Jost make recommendations for future conservation and development strategies in this complicated setting.
Biographies of the Presenters:
Mwenja is a wildlife biologist with nine years of field experience in East Africa. He is a recent graduate of the 2008-2009 USFWS MENTOR Fellowship Program that used a team approach to build the capacity and professional development of a group of emerging conservation leaders from Kenya, Southern Sudan, Tanzania, and Uganda who work together to lead efforts to reduce the illegal bushmeat trade at local and regional levels. Out of MENTOR emerged the new Bushmeat-free Eastern Africa Network (BEAN), an interdisciplinary and multi-institutional network of stakeholders that shares information and implements grassroots solutions to directly address bushmeat exploitation problems affecting protected and surrounding areas in eastern Africa.
For more on information, see:
Mwenja’s Bushmeat in Kenya Blog: http://bushmeateastafrica.wildlifedirect.org/
BEAN: www.bushmeatnetwork.org
MENTOR: www.mentorfellowshipprogram.org
Lesley Daspit is currently a doctoral candidate in anthropology at Purdue University. Her dissertation research focuses on the role of women in wildlife commerce and conservation in the Congo Basin. She returned in November of 2008 from conducting fieldwork at the Dzanga-Sangha Dense Forest Reserve, Central African Republic. Lesley has earned a master’s in experimental psychology and primate behavior and a bachelor’s in anthropology. Her current research interests include: the bushmeat trade, gender, political ecology, globalization, biodiversity conservation, sustainable development, and the Congo Basin.
Carolyn A. Jost is a doctoral candidate in the Department of Anthropology at Purdue University. Her research focuses on assessing the effectiveness of ecological census methods for forest ungulates (Cephalophus spp., duikers) and the use of hunter knowledge and behavior in establishing adaptive management systems in Congo Basin forests. She conducted dissertation fieldwork from August 2008-July 2009 in the Dzanga-Sangha Dense Forest Reserve, Central African Republic. Carolyn has earned a master’s in anthropology and a bachelor’s in ecology and evolutionary biology and anthropology. Her research interests include biodiversity conservation, sustainable management and hunting, vertebrate population dynamics, hunter concepts of population dynamics, the bushmeat trade, and community ecology.