From the Editor
These past three months have certainly gone by in a flurry of activity. This has been exciting both in terms of what the College is achieving as well as the work that our different training departments are involved in. Moreover, we have been working hard on a sustainability strategy for the College and in further developing relationships with key partners, donors and other regional conservation training institutions.
Over the past few weeks you would have seen a number of news releases, newsflashes and social media posts on new appointments to the Southern African Wildlife College Board, on research being conducted in and around the College and on our signing of an MoU with the Government of Zambia and with the College of Wildlife Management, Mweka. This is a real boost for regional conservation and we look forward to sharing news on this collaboration as well as on the recent visit by the African Leadership University (ALU) School of Wildlife Conservation.
In addition, our four-pronged approach to counter poaching is having real success on the ground. We are extremely proud of all the work and inroads our field ranger training teams, our K9 unit, our aerial support unit as well as our Rural Initiatives for a Sustainable Environment (RISE) unit are making. It’s a real team effort supported by our applied learning approach to training.
This issue of The Bateleur News once again covers news from all four of our training departments namely Natural Resource Management, Community Development and Youth Access, Responsible Resource Use & Field Guiding and Protected Area Integrity/Field Ranger Training. We also share some news on our staff, on our applied learning unit and on our projects.
This will give you further insight into the work we are doing whilst highlighting some of our achievements in “Training beyond Boundaries”. The continuing and increasing pressure on our natural world and on targeted species is what drives us to keep forging ahead to help curb and mitigate these pressures through adequate training and skills development.
In our next issue we hope to bring you some news on the upcoming World Youth Wildlife Summit, which is taking place at the College as well as insight into our sustainability strategy moving forward.
