I have just returned Aberdeen, Scotland, where I attended the ACES conference. The conference theme was “Conservation Conflicts: Strategies for coping with a changing world”. This was the perfect opportunity to give a talk on Warrior Watch and the work that Ewaso Lions is doing with the Samburu communities related to human-lion conflict. My presentation was well received and opened up a lot of new discussion and ideas on conflict mitigation and strategies that work globally.
It was a productive few days with multi-disciplinary plenary sessions and talks, highlighting ecological, social and at times political issues all relating to conservation conflict. With presenters from all over the world – including a few from Kenya – I learned a lot about how conflicts occur over a range of scales from the local management of single species to international conflicts over the management of resources, and ways people are working to reduce this conflict.
Presenters from Kenya (from left to right): Shivani Bhalla, Winnie Kiiru, Irene Amoke
If any readers attended the conference, let me know what you thought. I’d love to hear from you.