This is the school where Teddy teaches wildlife conservation. He interviewed one of the amazingly resourceful and enthusiastic teachers there. The kids are all engaged as their teacher describes his use of the school’s single monitor to display some questions with the rest being on the blackboard that the kids must copy. They don’t have a budget for a printer or paper and the computer he’s using is 15 years old and his own, from his university days, which he brought in from home. He explains how slow the process is and how it limits learning. Notice that there’s no table to elevate the monitor to improve visibility for the kids in the back rows.
The mowana (baobab) trees throughout Botswana are struggling to survive and thrive because of human impact on elephant migration leading to overfeeding on these generous but sensitive trees. This species is essential to the ecosystem and needs to be protected while respecting and honoring the elephants.
This project brings together an organic solution created through research, indigenous practices and ancestral knowledge and an education program that I’ve spent years developing for local schools. By training local young people to be able to use this approach to protect mowana trees, we will not only help the trees and elephants thrive better together but also plant the seeds for a new generation of local conservationists.
To become self-sustaining in our conservation and education program we want to share what we are doing and learning with a broader population through conservation tourism. We want to offer an authentic, local conservation safari experience rooted in our traditional ways and understanding.
Ujubee currently has several emergent opportunities to extend research in national parks across South Africa. They have also identified immediate interest and needs to spread practices and awareness directly amongst national parks guides and staff.
The combination of both of these has the possibility to establish a model that can shift both day-to-day and long-term decision-making and policy around bees, not only in these specific sites but also as it spreads to other locations. This merges a decade of existing Ujubee work with the urgent current need for a vision of effective change.
This project will document the process and give people the opportunity to directly learn and support this key moment in this work as it unfolds.
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