Jennifer Halstead spent the last month volunteering as a research assistant to the “human and elephant co-existant” project, here’s what she had to say about her first experiences in Botswana and with EWB

Could the rising temperatures of climate change be affecting elephants’ choice of habitat and possibly their daily movements?

This project will contribute a gendered view to discussions of the local impacts of community conservation, which have all but been ignored to this point. In addition to being important for local women and their livelihoods, these considerations are also crucial as transfrontier conservation initiatives such as the KAZA TFCA

Further research and time might reveal this dispersal to possibly be the longest transboundary mammal migration in southern Africa.

I have excitedly joined the EWB team in collaboration with the Giraffe Conservation Foundation and the University of New South Wales to undertake the first giraffe study in the region, giving insight into their ecological requirements and behaviour, and conservation status. Analysis of this data will form the basis of my PhD.

Tempe Adams has joined the Elephants Without Borders team to investigate human-elephant interaction in northern Botswana for her PhD project

This is truly a special place, where wildlife still permeates the human matrix as animals travel back and forth between Chobe’s waterfront resources

Botswana government has realized that the fundamental key to effective wildlife conservation and management is long-term, science-based research, and thus has granted Elephants Without Borders (EWB) a research permit to study the population status and spatial ecology of large herbivores

The respect for raw beauty and power that was demanded by the wildlife at Chobe National Park caught many of us off-guard, and we now feel as though we truly understand…

He said if we could secure large tracts of habitat for elephants and promote the ideal that communities could mutually benefit living with wildlife, then we would be securing a healthy environment for all: elephants, wildlife and people.