Ewaso Lions

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

9 responses so far

Category: Team | Date: Dec 24 2008 | By: ewasolions

The entire Ewaso Lions team has just returned from a 2 day wedding in Wamba, North of Samburu.  This was the second wedding of the year of one of the Ewaso Lions team members.  This wedding was for the project’s community officer - Raphael Lekuraiyo.  Jeremiah Letoole, Ewaso Lions scout, was married in July this year again in Wamba.

It was a lively, colourful and fun occasion, with many traditional dances and feasts.  Below are a few photos of the occasion.

Raph, the groom

Alice, the beautiful bride from Wamba

Joseph and Jeneria dance amongst the other warriors and ladies

More traditional dancing

The Ewaso Lions team

Look out for future blogs which will have some videos of the Samburu dances at the wedding!

Tags: dances, Lions, Samburu, tradition, weddings

3 responses so far