Africa’s Young Conservation Biologist of the Year!
Category: Team | Date: May 20 2009 | By: ewasolions
I am very excited to let you know that I am the recipient of the Society for Conservation Biology (SCB) Africa Section Young Women Conservation Biologist of the Year award!
More information that was announced recently is below:
Young Women Conservation Biologists Award
won by Kenyan Lion Researcher Shivani Bhalla
The Society for Conservation Biology (SCB) Africa Section Young Women Conservation Biologists Awards Panel has unanimously selected Shivani Bhalla as the winner of this year’s Young Women Conservation Biologists Award – the third year that the award has been presented.
In addition to Ms. Bhalla’s academic excellence, her breadth and depth of activities in the conservation and community awareness arenas was second to none. Dr Phoebe Barnard (SCB Africa Section Award Panel Chair 2007 and 2009) said that “We in Africa are really fortunate to have conservation biologists with such passion and energy in our midst.”
Ms. Bhalla is currently attaining her PhD through the University of Oxford’s Department of Zoology. Working with pastoralists in Samburu, Northern Kenya, Ms. Bhalla is working to reduce livestock loss to predators, tracks lions movements in and out of the protected areas (Samburu, Buffalo Springs and Shaba National Reserves), and monitors habitat changes and prey numbers. Africa’s lion population has been dramatically reduced in recent years primarily from habitat reduction and human-lion conflict. Ms. Bhalla states, “If local communities are not engaged as part of the solution, lions will disappear from the landscape.”
The Award certificate will be presented at the 2009 SCB meeting, to be held in Beijing from 11-16 July, 2009. This year’s mainstream SCB awardees (for the SCB LaRoe and Distinguished Service Awards) include Joel Berger, George Schaller and Kamal Bawa, and Shivani will be attending the conference to receive her award personally.
The 2007 winner of the YWCB Award was Margaret Aanyu, freshwater biologist from Uganda, and the 2008 winner was Kristal Maze, chief director of biodiversity planning and mainstreaming from South Africa.
Click here:
http://www.conbio.org/2009/awards
Tags: Kenya, Lion, Samburu, Society for Conservation Biology
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Ewaso Lions is a project based in the Samburu region. I am working with the local people to enhance co-existence between lions and communities in this stunning arid landscape in Northern Kenya.
9 Responses to “Africa’s Young Conservation Biologist of the Year!”
nairobinationalpark, on 20 May 2009
Well done you Shivani! Lions need people like you! Good luck with your project & I hope it rains along the Ewaso soon….
Jan, on 20 May 2009
Congratulations Shiv! I’m so very proud of you and the work you are doing, both for the wildlife and with the local communities. You deserve it.
Keep up the good work, and stay safe.
When you are in China, tell them to keep their poachers out of Kenya.
sauwah, on 20 May 2009
congratulations! it’s so great. and you are going all the way to china? wow! i find it so interesting for any conservation award taken place in beijing. china or most chinese are not into conservation at all. and how many men love to eat big cats to make them feel so called manly. hopefully , such event and others might spread the wisdom of conservation and the true values of wildlife other than their money making and tourist attracting pandas!
sauwah, on 20 May 2009
jan, you are so right. china is , i think, the biggest irony consumer. not only you should gently spread some good words for elephants ( especially the asian ones for their number are far fewer, their lives are lot harsher and areas are lot smaller), you also should speak up for the african big cats too. you stated the reason earlier. since there are only four thousand tigers left in the wild, the tiger farmers are not allowed to sell their tiger meat legally or widely to those stupid men, chinese now are buying lion parts and meats for their so called chinese medicine. they of course label lion bones and parts as tiger parts. since life of a lioness in those canned hunting/lion farms costs only several hundred south african currency, they are the best substitute for tiger parts. sadly, even some of lion guardians found lion parts being sold in markets. to whom? chinese tourists who are seen quite common now from china.
Anna M, on 21 May 2009
Well done and congratulations, fantastic news ! As for the trip to Beijing, I hope you guys get loads of media coverage so an additional seed can be planted in a way of education to try and change current behaviour and mind sets based on old traditions and lack of understanding of the consequences….
sauwah, on 21 May 2009
changing the old and the uneducated is really touch or frankly impossible. we humans are dumber than animals in so many ways and it comes from our big fat ego! but the young and the educated ones need your enlightenment. so good luck and have a good time on planting the seeds of knowledge, love and respect for the wild and kindness to all creatures great and small. there are groups and people who will think very much like you i assume. afterall, jackie chang is also in favor of tiger conservation and other animal issues too. just do not go out and eat cat and dog meat by accident. or even pork because factory farming is now common in china and it is very bad for our envirnoment and very hellish or the poor pigs while their are live and being slaughtered.
ewasolions, on 24 May 2009
Thank you all for your good wishes. I am curious as well to see what will come out of the conference being held in China. I’ll definitely keep you posted and hope that I can even send a few blogs and updates from there. I intend to plant the seeds of knowledge and respect for wildlife as much as possible.
I am vegetarian and will stay away from the cat/dog meat!
Thanks again to you all,
Shivani
Stacey, on 15 Jul 2009
Hi Shiv! I went to your blog and read the wonderful news! Huge congratulations to you in achieving this award. You so deserve it and the SCB couldn’t have picked a better person. I hope you are enjoying your time at the conference sharing the importance of wildlife conservation that more of the world needs to hear and understand.
Ewaso Lions » A Ceremony and Conference in China, on 18 Aug 2009
[…] a 2 minute speech in front of more than 1000 people! It was a privilege to receive the award for “Africa’s Young Women Conservation Biologist” of the Year and I am extremely grateful to the SCB for this great […]
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