A Zimbabwean conservationist working to reduce conflict between lions and livestock farmers is a winner of one of this year’s Whitley Awards, better known as the “Green Oscars.” The prize money will fund the expansion of the work led by Moreangels Mbizah and her NGO, Wildlife Conservation Action, in a region that is a hotspot for human-carnivore conflict.
Community guardians employed by WCA warn farmers when lions enter their farming areas; promote the use of secure animal enclosures for cattle, goats and sheep, and oversee the installation of solar-powered flashing lights to deter nocturnal raids by lions.
These interventions have reduced conflict by up to 98% in at least two rural wards, but habitat loss through the expansion of farms into wildlife migration corridors worries Mbizah and her team.
Lion conservationist Moreangels Mbizah and her colleagues chose the name “Batabilili” for the community guardians they’re training in northern Zimbabwe. The word means “protectors” in the local language, Tonga, and its meaning cuts both ways: the guardians protect people and their livestock from lions, and lions from people.
Both jobs are essential in this part of the Southern African country. When cattle are killed by lions, the economic losses suffered by families are considerable; when farmers retaliate by killing lions, it worsens the plight of an emblematic species, Panthera leo, now vulnerable to extinction across the continent.
