Tanzania’s Maasai appeal to west to stop eviction for conservation plans

Themes: Agriculture, Conservation, Livlihoods, Indigenous people, Parks, Pastoralists, Poverty, Tourism, Hunting

Thousands of Indigenous people sign letter to UK, US and EU protesting at appropriation of land for tourist safaris and hunting

Ndumo Game Reserve:

The complicated balancing act of subsistence farming and nature conservation in KwaZulu-Natal

Themes: Agriculture, Conservation, Human rights, Livlihoods, Parks, Fisheries, Poverty, Poaching

As cultivated fields expand and grazing cattle explore ever further in the Ndumo Game Reserve in KwaZulu-Natal, researchers worry about unresolved efforts to address human poverty while also trying to protect the ever-shrinking spaces left for wildlife and nature conservation.

Deprived of their forests, Uganda’s Batwa adapt their sustainable practices.

Three decades since the Batwa people in Uganda were evicted from their ancestral lands to create national parks, members of the group live in poverty and marginalization at the fringes of society.

Themes: Agriculture, Conservation, Indigenous people, Livlihoods, Poverty, Human rights

Lack of land rights and access to natural resources has eroded traditional knowledge in the hunter-gatherer community, especially concerning herbal medicine and endemic plant species. Despite these circumstances, some Batwa groups are adopting new conservation practices involving regenerative agriculture on small plots of land donated to them by the United Organisation of Batwa Development in Uganda (UOBDU).

Hambantota ‘Elephant Management Zone’

A pace-setter to resolve Human-Elephant Conflict

Themes: Agriculture, Conservation, Livlihoods

The year 2019 marked the worst year for human-elephant relations, with 405 elephant deaths at the hands of humans and 121 human deaths by elephants. Most deaths were due to human encroachment of traditional elephant regions, fragmentation of their territory, the use of their territory for development and for illegal activities, thereby depriving elephants of their natural feeding and movement

Mapping conflict hotspots as leopards adapt to unlikely habitats outside protected areas

Analysis of leopard attacks on livestock offers clues to potential human-leopard conflict hotspots in North Bengal in eastern Himalayas and Pauri Garhwal in western Himalayas.

Themes: Conservation, Parks, Agriculture

Leopards have adapted to using human-modified landscapes such as tea gardens, sugarcane fields and farmlands and they can survive in unusual, multi-use, fragmented vegetation patches outside protected areas. The study finds the risk of a leopard killing livestock increased within a heterogeneous landscape matrix consisting of both closed and open habitats (very dense forests, moderate dense forests, open forests, scrubland and non-forests).

The Serengeti-Mara squeeze.

one of the world’s most iconic ecosystems under pressure.

Themes: Agriculture, Conservation, Policy, Parks, Pastoralists

New finding alters our view on what is needed to protect biodiversity.

Taking Some of the Pain out of Human–Wildlife Conflict

Tigers, leopards, elephants and more wreak havoc on farms and villages in India, but a compensation program can ease the sting—and conserve the animals

Themes: Conservation, Agriculture, Human rights

Brazil’s Temer threatens constitutional indigenous land rights.

Themes: Agriculture, Human rights, Indigenous people, Conservation

President Temer, influenced by the rural lobby in congress whose votes he needs to not be tried by the Supreme Court on corruption charges, has okayed new criteria meant to delegitimize indigenous land boundary claims, legal experts say.- One rule rejects any indigenous demarcation of land where Indians were not physically present on a traditional territory in 1988, which would disqualify many legitimate claims. - Another allows government to undertake “strategic” public works, such as dams and roads, without indigenous consent, violating the International Labor Organization’s 169 Convention, signed by Brazil.- The administration also introduced a bill likely to be passed by congress that reclassifies 349,000 hectares (1,347 square miles) of Jamanxim National Forest in the Amazon, gutting protections, allowing economic activities — logging, ranching, farming and mining — and legitimizing land grabs there.