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Bridging the divide: key takeaways from the human-carnivore co-adaptation workshop in Kasane, Botswana By Julia Brekl Between March 16 and 18, 2025 a diverse group of stakeholders – natural and social scientists, carnivore conservation NGO representatives, and officials from the Botswana Department of Wildlife (DWNP) and National Parks and Kavango-Zambezi Transfrontier Conservation Area (KAZA TFCA)–convened […]

Shadows within shadows: the environmental injustices of Botswana’s red zone By Wisse van Engelen and Pierre du Plessis Rewilding is an increasingly popular nature conservation strategy in Europe and beyond. Focusing on natural processes rather than species composition, it aims to stimulate ecosystem integrity by letting nature go its own way in previously human-dominated areas.

Global foot-and-mouth disease control policy and its effects on Botswana’s people and wildlife by Wisse van Engelen Last week the European Commission for the Control of Foot-and-Mouth Disease (EuFMD) celebrated its 70th anniversary. Launched on the 12th of June 1954, the EuFMD had as its mission “to promote national and international action with respect to

Short film: The Southern Buffalo Fence by Wisse van Engelen Disease transmission is an often overlooked form of human-wildlife conflict, yet animal diseases and veterinary interventions often mediate human-wildlife relations. As part of my PhD project, I made a short film about a foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) control intervention that shows its entanglement with humans and

Removing fences, reintroducing herding: how the redomestication of cattle may lead to wilder landscapes by Wisse van Engelen The picture above shows a common sight in Botswana. Cattle are often seen straying along roads, as well as in towns, through villages, and in the bush. When I first came to Botswana for my fieldwork I

Beastly Tension by Manuel Bollmann Tierische Anspannung, in German, can be translated to both the title of this blog entry and the ‘operation of a draught animal’, as it is commonly used in South Asia, for example in Bangladesh (Mack et al. 1987). Referring to, Bubalus Bubalis, also known as the Asian Water Buffalo, merely

Dealing with research fatigue and expectations during fieldwork A personal reflection by Julia Brekl The village youth participating in a CV-writing workshop hold by the researcher It can be one of the greatest challenges of conducting research with people and it was my most pressing anxiety before I started fieldwork: Research fatigue. The tiredness or

New publication: “Complexities of multispecies coexistence: Animal diseases and diverging modes of ordering at the wildlife–livestock interface in Southern Africa” by Wisse van Engelen The full text, published in Environment and Planning E: Nature and Space, can be found here: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/epub/10.1177/2514848623116063 Citation: van Dam, A., van Engelen, W., Müller-Mahn, D., Agha, S., Junglen, S., Borgemeister,

Rewilding for whom? Coexisting with wildlife against the biodiversity crisis by Léa Lacan & Michael Bollig Wildebeests in the Simalaha conservancy (Zambia) – Picture by Léa Lacan 01.04.2023 Global leaders are currently meeting in Montreal with the mission to elaborate the post-2020 global biodiversity framework. In his launching message for this 15th Conference of the Parties