[Music]
we live in a world full of risk and
reward and there’s no place where that’s
more true than mana pools a national
park in the northern part is I’m in the
Zimbabwe on the shores of the lower
Zambezi the mana pool has a reputation
of being one of the least developed
national parks in all of southern Africa
the accommodation there is still
predominantly intense and even accessing
the park is relatively difficult when I
visited earlier this year I was advised
to avoid traveling over land in Zimbabwe
and especially to stay off Main Roads we
therefore flew into neighboring Zambia
and stayed for a camp the first night
business of the capital Lusaka before
driving for hours overland to the border
the next day now the cars we were in
weren’t actually able to cross the
border which meant we had to get out
with all of our gear and physically walk
into some Bob way there we were met by a
different car undriven two hours down to
the shores of Zambezi where we
transferred all of our gear into boats
and then shot for three hours up the
river to the first camp now one of the
things that makes monopoles so
attractive in addition to its
undeveloped nature is the fact that
during the dry season much of the water
in the park actually evaporates which
forces wildlife to congregate on the
banks that Zambezi generating to very
high densities some of Africa’s most
unique biodiversity this is John John
works the guide in marna pools but as
the rifle suggests his job is sometimes
a little bit more intensive than just
herding tourists or mining visitor
centers John also works anti poaching in
Zimbabwe a country where unfortunately
biodiversity conservation is often
impacted by armed conflict and
lawlessness John therefore faces risks
on a regular basis as he works to
protect the biodiversity of this unique
place I myself AM a conservation
biologist here at Utah State University
I carry a camera not a gun and the only
risks I regularly face is riding my bike
across campus
I do however spend a lot of time
researching biodiversity and I
specifically look at how we should
incorporate risk into the way in which
we allocate our resources amongst
different conservation investments John
and I actually therefore work in a very
similar field but from a very different
perspective now historically
conservation managers have had a very
risk-averse
approach to biodiversity management we
like to think that when an area has been
set aside for protection like made a
national park for example the
biodiversity it contains is safe and it
will just carry on in perpetuity
we hate to think that our investments in
conservation can fail however they can
fail and what I want to try and explain
to you today is that by not accounting
for that risk of failure or worse still
potentially avoiding high-risk
investments due to a perceived fear of
failure it can actually have some quite
serious impacts on biodiversity and a
significant risk that’s posed to
conservation and biodiversity is an
armed conflict of which poaching is just
one type poaching a armed conflict has
the potential to impact biodiversity
through a suite of different mechanisms
first as the direct impact of munitions
and vehicles on wildlife second is the
depletion of resources and third is
potentially the movement of refugees
following a conflict occurring for
example this image was taken in a place
called a Kagera national park in rwanda
during the genocide occurred in a wonder
in the 90s a large number of refugees
moved into the park impact in plants and
wildlife and effectively reduce the size
of the park by 50%
now I’m not ever suggesting that
refugees should be denied access to an
area of safety just that these are the
sorts of things that we need to be
thinking about when we’re making
conservation investments and in the case
of minor pools we might actually think
that it’s undeveloped remote nature
would aid in its protection in reality
the reverse is true this is because it’s
very difficult to police somewhere
that’s so remote and also contains some
potentially very valuable wildlife for
example the African rhino this Rhino the
horn on the front of it is worth about
105
thousand US dollars per kilo this makes
it more valuable in gold diamonds or
even cocaine in the legal demand for
rhino horn during the 80s and 90s
actually led to several incidents of
armed conflict inside mana pools and led
the management there to make some very
difficult decisions and armed conflict
is actually more widespread than we
think when we hear the word armed
conflict the first thing we might think
of is large
interstate Wars in reality in Africa the
vast majority violent conflicts occurred
a much smaller scale unlikely to be
state-sponsored and anecdotally have
occurred in heavily biodiverse areas and
so this led to me to think about whether
or not there’s a correlation between
conflict risk and areas of high
biodiversity for the entire continent to
investigate this correlation the first
thing I did was calculate an estimate of
conflict risk for the entire continent
of Africa this was based upon the number
of conflicts that have occurred in an
area the amount of people that were
killed in those conflicts and the amount
of time since the last conflict occurred
iving correlated this with areas of
biodiversity and Wow we can see straight
away there’s a clear spacial overlap
between areas of high biodiversity and
areas of high conflict this result is
not actually unique or an isolated
incident studies that have been
conducted before and since have
demonstrated the same pattern and we now
know that between the years 1950 and
2000 over 80% of the world’s armed
conflicts actually occurred in
biodiversity hotspots and this worrying
overlap between areas of high
biodiversity and conflict may be driven
by a suite of different factors firstly
the biodiversity itself just like this
Rhino which unfortunately is wearing
about 300,000 u.s. dollars on its face
it can be represent a valuable resource
that can be the spark that ignites
conflicts as opposing factions battle to
take control of this resource and the
areas that inhabits secondly biodiverse
areas tends to be places like tropical
rainforests these are very attractive to
militias because it’s possible for a
large number of people to disappear
relatively quickly satellite imagery and
aerial photography can’t
penetrate through the tree canopy and
even thermal imaging is problematic due
to the high temperatures that are
present in forests thirdly in addition
to providing this sort of potentially
valuable resource biodiversity provides
other things that can help sustain
people for extended periods for example
a large buck like this even though a
water buck is not considered
particularly tasty can provide enough
meat to feed 200 people relatively
easily so keeping all this in mind I’ve
been working on what to dündar stand to
do next when the areas that we
potentially care most about because
they’re hot biodiversity hotspots and
contain many species are also the areas
that most like to be undermined by armed
conflict how do we start to proceed with
our conservation allocations and is it
worth the risk so together with
colleagues at the University of
Queensland and the University of
Copenhagen identified the distributions
of 195 of Africa’s endangered emic
mammals of which a selection shown up
here we then specifically investigated
what would be the conservation outcomes
of adopting three different attitudes
towards conflict risk under the first
scenario we just ignore it we just live
in a magical happy land where nothing
bad ever happens and the second scenario
we just avoid risk we decide some areas
are too dangerous to operate in and we
just move elsewhere under the third
scenario we basically steal some ideas
from economics and specifically the
chances of investments failing and start
to explicitly account for the risk of
conflict when we’re making our decisions
about where to place for tected areas on
the landscape and what we found is if
conservation managers are willing to
accept a certain level of risk but
explicitly account for that risk in
their decisions then it should be
possible to design a protected area
network for the continent that
effectively protects 190 out of 195
endangered mammals or essentially 97.5%
of species if on the other hand we
decide to just ignore conflict or we
avoid it we’d actually struggle to
present prevent protecting 50% of
species
this is because if we ignore the risk of
conflict many of our investments are
like to be undermined when this
unexpected incident occurs on the flip
side if we choose to avoid areas of high
conflict we effectively turn large parts
of the continent into conservation no-go
areas and mana pools actually serves as
a bit of an example of the gain that can
be a comes from accounting for risk and
then working through it after manages
the park identified that several of
their or a lot of their incidents would
do two problems associated rhino
poaching they took the very difficult
decision to actually move the Rhino out
of the park
both for their protection and that of
people in the area in addition to this
day minor pool still mounts heavy anti
poaching operations and the place
remains home to large populations of
elephants lions buffalo and leopard
amongst others and in the case of mana
pools moving animals was a solution in
other areas the natural movement of
animals can actually generate more
problems large terrestrial mammals tend
to have expansive natural ranges they
move around the landscape and they do
not respect political boundaries which
are often just lines aisle but rarely
drawn on a map these large species also
tend to be the charismatic species which
can generate large amounts of revenue
food tourism for example the Virunga
ruins early and volcanoes national parks
essentially form one large continuous
park system that covers parts of the
Democratic Republic of Congo Rwanda and
Uganda this area is famous for its
gorillas and jungle elephant populations
both of which have the capacity to
generate large amounts of money to
tourism
however habituated gorillas put troops
have a tendency to move across the
landscape potentially into a different
country and when they do that they
effectively take the revenue that can
generate with them to mitigate against
this risk manager from the different
parks got together and now share a
proportion of the gorillas permits
amongst their groups in order that no
one establishment faces excessive
financial losses for extended periods
gnilova Wonga
and the neighbouring parks exist in what
is the most conflict prone region of an
entire continent
and they face continued risks that have
unfortunately led to 160 ranges being
killed in Virunga alone in recent years
they still stand as a testament to the
successes that can be achieved if we
understand conflict risk and work
through it and the continued efforts
around the hunger mountains may even led
towards peace the grade of a Wonga
transboundary collaboration which was
formalized and ratified in 2015
stems from a desire between the
Democratic Republic of Congo and Rwanda
to actively increase gorilla populations
this agreement has meant that workers
from different nations nations at times
that were actively engaged in armed
conflict have been able to work together
towards a common goal and actually
succeeded in increasing gorilla
populations in these parks during a time
when both countries faced periods of
stability or instability in this example
together without transboundary
collaborations demonstrates that in some
cases conservation can be the one area
in which factions that don’t agree on an
awful lot of things can find some common
ground it means they can work together
and may even fat in fact generate a path
to peace rather than be a cause for
conflict life and preserving life is all
about taking risks and I just like to
end by acknowledging some of the amazing
work of people on the ground and on the
front line people like John
well I sit at home or in my desk working
on models and putting data data into
simulations it’s people like John who
are actively working on the front line
to make these things happen
without people like John all the
planning all the calculations all the
simulations would all fall flat the only
reason that we have species like rhino
and elephant still present in the wild
is cost throughout history there’s been
a group of people who are willing to
accept these risks and continue to work
through them the world is a risky and
uncertain place but if we face up to
these risks rather than ignoring them
even under the most challenging
circumstances we can achieve success and
protect some of the most iconic species
on the planet thank
you
we live in a world full of risk and
reward and there’s no place where that’s
more true than mana pools a national
park in the northern part is I’m in the
Zimbabwe on the shores of the lower
Zambezi the mana pool has a reputation
of being one of the least developed
national parks in all of southern Africa
the accommodation there is still
predominantly intense and even accessing
the park is relatively difficult when I
visited earlier this year I was advised
to avoid traveling over land in Zimbabwe
and especially to stay off Main Roads we
therefore flew into neighboring Zambia
and stayed for a camp the first night
business of the capital Lusaka before
driving for hours overland to the border
the next day now the cars we were in
weren’t actually able to cross the
border which meant we had to get out
with all of our gear and physically walk
into some Bob way there we were met by a
different car undriven two hours down to
the shores of Zambezi where we
transferred all of our gear into boats
and then shot for three hours up the
river to the first camp now one of the
things that makes monopoles so
attractive in addition to its
undeveloped nature is the fact that
during the dry season much of the water
in the park actually evaporates which
forces wildlife to congregate on the
banks that Zambezi generating to very
high densities some of Africa’s most
unique biodiversity this is John John
works the guide in marna pools but as
the rifle suggests his job is sometimes
a little bit more intensive than just
herding tourists or mining visitor
centers John also works anti poaching in
Zimbabwe a country where unfortunately
biodiversity conservation is often
impacted by armed conflict and
lawlessness John therefore faces risks
on a regular basis as he works to
protect the biodiversity of this unique
place I myself AM a conservation
biologist here at Utah State University
I carry a camera not a gun and the only
risks I regularly face is riding my bike
across campus
I do however spend a lot of time
researching biodiversity and I
specifically look at how we should
incorporate risk into the way in which
we allocate our resources amongst
different conservation investments John
and I actually therefore work in a very
similar field but from a very different
perspective now historically
conservation managers have had a very
risk-averse
approach to biodiversity management we
like to think that when an area has been
set aside for protection like made a
national park for example the
biodiversity it contains is safe and it
will just carry on in perpetuity
we hate to think that our investments in
conservation can fail however they can
fail and what I want to try and explain
to you today is that by not accounting
for that risk of failure or worse still
potentially avoiding high-risk
investments due to a perceived fear of
failure it can actually have some quite
serious impacts on biodiversity and a
significant risk that’s posed to
conservation and biodiversity is an
armed conflict of which poaching is just
one type poaching a armed conflict has
the potential to impact biodiversity
through a suite of different mechanisms
first as the direct impact of munitions
and vehicles on wildlife second is the
depletion of resources and third is
potentially the movement of refugees
following a conflict occurring for
example this image was taken in a place
called a Kagera national park in rwanda
during the genocide occurred in a wonder
in the 90s a large number of refugees
moved into the park impact in plants and
wildlife and effectively reduce the size
of the park by 50%
now I’m not ever suggesting that
refugees should be denied access to an
area of safety just that these are the
sorts of things that we need to be
thinking about when we’re making
conservation investments and in the case
of minor pools we might actually think
that it’s undeveloped remote nature
would aid in its protection in reality
the reverse is true this is because it’s
very difficult to police somewhere
that’s so remote and also contains some
potentially very valuable wildlife for
example the African rhino this Rhino the
horn on the front of it is worth about
105
thousand US dollars per kilo this makes
it more valuable in gold diamonds or
even cocaine in the legal demand for
rhino horn during the 80s and 90s
actually led to several incidents of
armed conflict inside mana pools and led
the management there to make some very
difficult decisions and armed conflict
is actually more widespread than we
think when we hear the word armed
conflict the first thing we might think
of is large
interstate Wars in reality in Africa the
vast majority violent conflicts occurred
a much smaller scale unlikely to be
state-sponsored and anecdotally have
occurred in heavily biodiverse areas and
so this led to me to think about whether
or not there’s a correlation between
conflict risk and areas of high
biodiversity for the entire continent to
investigate this correlation the first
thing I did was calculate an estimate of
conflict risk for the entire continent
of Africa this was based upon the number
of conflicts that have occurred in an
area the amount of people that were
killed in those conflicts and the amount
of time since the last conflict occurred
iving correlated this with areas of
biodiversity and Wow we can see straight
away there’s a clear spacial overlap
between areas of high biodiversity and
areas of high conflict this result is
not actually unique or an isolated
incident studies that have been
conducted before and since have
demonstrated the same pattern and we now
know that between the years 1950 and
2000 over 80% of the world’s armed
conflicts actually occurred in
biodiversity hotspots and this worrying
overlap between areas of high
biodiversity and conflict may be driven
by a suite of different factors firstly
the biodiversity itself just like this
Rhino which unfortunately is wearing
about 300,000 u.s. dollars on its face
it can be represent a valuable resource
that can be the spark that ignites
conflicts as opposing factions battle to
take control of this resource and the
areas that inhabits secondly biodiverse
areas tends to be places like tropical
rainforests these are very attractive to
militias because it’s possible for a
large number of people to disappear
relatively quickly satellite imagery and
aerial photography can’t
penetrate through the tree canopy and
even thermal imaging is problematic due
to the high temperatures that are
present in forests thirdly in addition
to providing this sort of potentially
valuable resource biodiversity provides
other things that can help sustain
people for extended periods for example
a large buck like this even though a
water buck is not considered
particularly tasty can provide enough
meat to feed 200 people relatively
easily so keeping all this in mind I’ve
been working on what to dündar stand to
do next when the areas that we
potentially care most about because
they’re hot biodiversity hotspots and
contain many species are also the areas
that most like to be undermined by armed
conflict how do we start to proceed with
our conservation allocations and is it
worth the risk so together with
colleagues at the University of
Queensland and the University of
Copenhagen identified the distributions
of 195 of Africa’s endangered emic
mammals of which a selection shown up
here we then specifically investigated
what would be the conservation outcomes
of adopting three different attitudes
towards conflict risk under the first
scenario we just ignore it we just live
in a magical happy land where nothing
bad ever happens and the second scenario
we just avoid risk we decide some areas
are too dangerous to operate in and we
just move elsewhere under the third
scenario we basically steal some ideas
from economics and specifically the
chances of investments failing and start
to explicitly account for the risk of
conflict when we’re making our decisions
about where to place for tected areas on
the landscape and what we found is if
conservation managers are willing to
accept a certain level of risk but
explicitly account for that risk in
their decisions then it should be
possible to design a protected area
network for the continent that
effectively protects 190 out of 195
endangered mammals or essentially 97.5%
of species if on the other hand we
decide to just ignore conflict or we
avoid it we’d actually struggle to
present prevent protecting 50% of
species
this is because if we ignore the risk of
conflict many of our investments are
like to be undermined when this
unexpected incident occurs on the flip
side if we choose to avoid areas of high
conflict we effectively turn large parts
of the continent into conservation no-go
areas and mana pools actually serves as
a bit of an example of the gain that can
be a comes from accounting for risk and
then working through it after manages
the park identified that several of
their or a lot of their incidents would
do two problems associated rhino
poaching they took the very difficult
decision to actually move the Rhino out
of the park
both for their protection and that of
people in the area in addition to this
day minor pool still mounts heavy anti
poaching operations and the place
remains home to large populations of
elephants lions buffalo and leopard
amongst others and in the case of mana
pools moving animals was a solution in
other areas the natural movement of
animals can actually generate more
problems large terrestrial mammals tend
to have expansive natural ranges they
move around the landscape and they do
not respect political boundaries which
are often just lines aisle but rarely
drawn on a map these large species also
tend to be the charismatic species which
can generate large amounts of revenue
food tourism for example the Virunga
ruins early and volcanoes national parks
essentially form one large continuous
park system that covers parts of the
Democratic Republic of Congo Rwanda and
Uganda this area is famous for its
gorillas and jungle elephant populations
both of which have the capacity to
generate large amounts of money to
tourism
however habituated gorillas put troops
have a tendency to move across the
landscape potentially into a different
country and when they do that they
effectively take the revenue that can
generate with them to mitigate against
this risk manager from the different
parks got together and now share a
proportion of the gorillas permits
amongst their groups in order that no
one establishment faces excessive
financial losses for extended periods
gnilova Wonga
and the neighbouring parks exist in what
is the most conflict prone region of an
entire continent
and they face continued risks that have
unfortunately led to 160 ranges being
killed in Virunga alone in recent years
they still stand as a testament to the
successes that can be achieved if we
understand conflict risk and work
through it and the continued efforts
around the hunger mountains may even led
towards peace the grade of a Wonga
transboundary collaboration which was
formalized and ratified in 2015
stems from a desire between the
Democratic Republic of Congo and Rwanda
to actively increase gorilla populations
this agreement has meant that workers
from different nations nations at times
that were actively engaged in armed
conflict have been able to work together
towards a common goal and actually
succeeded in increasing gorilla
populations in these parks during a time
when both countries faced periods of
stability or instability in this example
together without transboundary
collaborations demonstrates that in some
cases conservation can be the one area
in which factions that don’t agree on an
awful lot of things can find some common
ground it means they can work together
and may even fat in fact generate a path
to peace rather than be a cause for
conflict life and preserving life is all
about taking risks and I just like to
end by acknowledging some of the amazing
work of people on the ground and on the
front line people like John
well I sit at home or in my desk working
on models and putting data data into
simulations it’s people like John who
are actively working on the front line
to make these things happen
without people like John all the
planning all the calculations all the
simulations would all fall flat the only
reason that we have species like rhino
and elephant still present in the wild
is cost throughout history there’s been
a group of people who are willing to
accept these risks and continue to work
through them the world is a risky and
uncertain place but if we face up to
these risks rather than ignoring them
even under the most challenging
circumstances we can achieve success and
protect some of the most iconic species
on the planet thank
you
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