South Africa

Newly qualified Vulture experts at Makuleke!

  In April we produced a series of four 'webinars' with VulPro.  The webinar recordings were used as the first introductory sessions for a club, the VulPro Vulture Club, that has been meeting in Makuleke cultural centre, on alternate Saturdays since.   Makuleke is at the northern end of Kruger National Park in South Africa. The club members are youngsters from nearby schools, and it's been organised by the Makuleke Park manager and led by his Conservation educators, Rhulani and Mika. [...]

School kids debating – for conservation or not for conservation?

Living with Wildlife, the advantages and disadvantages   The RISE department at Southern Africa Wildlife College has been organising school debating competitions.  These youngsters (above) attend schools in the Manyeleti Circuit, Mpumalanga Province in South Africa, close to Kruger National Park and the College. They are from communities that were displaced by the park.  The students from five primary and four high schools each set up teams, prepared their case and traveled to the College for their competition.  On day one, [...]

Conservation education, Makuleke, South Africa

Last month, along with the RISE unit at Southern Africa Wildlife College and VulPro, we organised a series of four webinars to raise Vulture awareness in and around Kruger National Park in South Africa. Vulture numbers in Kruger are low, and poisoning events like one last year that killed 120 birds are having catastrophic impact.  The Makuleke Park Manager, Aubrey Maluleke, works alongside SANParks running a community owned, community run area within Kruger National Park. He included his educators in the [...]

A new PACE resource – Vultures.

Vultures are awesome birds. They are majestic, amusing, vulnerable, and yet sadly, are much misunderstood. Most of us know very little about vultures, and though we don't realise, much of what we do know tends to be myth and speculation. That's why we teamed up with VulPro in South Africa to produce a new resource. It's designed for school and community use, is available in print and digital, in English and Portuguese. We are also running interactive on-line sessions for schools [...]

PACE at Makuleke, South Africa

The PACE coordinator was in Makuleke, Limpopo Province, in South Africa this month. We were invited by the local Makuleke Park Manager, as part of our collaboration with the Southern Africa Wildlife College. The Makuleke people were one of the first communities to win back land that they were forced off of to create Kruger National Park. They now have full ownership, and co-manage their 22,000 ha of land within the KNP, alongside SAN Parks, the National Park authority.  The Makuleke [...]

New avenues for learning

We are Nathashia Khosa, Siphokazi Sibeko and Bongiwe Hlabane.  We are interns in the Southern Africa Wildlife College,  in the Community and Youth Development department. Our internship is for a year.  We live in a village called Welverdiend in Mpumalanga Province which is next to the Greater Kruger National Park where the college is located.  We are one of the communities that was displaced by the park when it was created. This week the PACE coordinator visited.  At the beginning of [...]

Covid-secure Conservation Education

                        Reduced income, school closures and the need for social distancing has required a major readjustment for conservation education providers across the continent. Lapalala Wilderness School in South Africa runs residential courses for local school children, visits more than 40 schools, mentors youth and trains teachers. They have been forced to suspend all these programmes. Despite the challenges the Lapalala team remains very active. Each working close to their homes, [...]

Careers in Conservation – role models

We'd like to congratulate Cathy Dreyer on her recent appointment as Conservation Manager at Addo Elephant National Park in South Africa's Eastern Cape. Cathy is an inspirational conservationist, in 2016 she won the prestigious TUSK Award for Conservation in Africa and she features in our new PACE Careers in Conservation Module. When Cathy was young she used to go walking near her home in Cape Town and on Table Mountain. She said that she always knew she wanted to do something [...]

Women in Conservation

"I finally met the famous Black Mambas Anti-poaching Unit!" When Palloma Pachiti, PACE Champion and expert educator in Zimbabwe kindly reviewed drafts of the new PACE educational materials earlier this year, she was excited to read about the Black Mambas from South Africa.  Palloma runs the Sebakwe Conservation and Education Centre in the Midlands of Zimbabwe.  What she read about the Black Mamba's work immediately inspired her to add new dimensions to her own projects with communities in Zimbabwe. We were [...]

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