This short news item on CONVIVA – the convivial conservation research project was first submitted as a contribution to the Transformations2Sustainability September 2019 newsletter.
In June 2019, the University of Sheffield, one of the institutions involved in the CONVIVA – convivial conservation research project funded by the Belmont Forum/NORFACE, hosted a workshop bringing together diverse scholars working on different aspects of political ecology in the global South and North. Four researchers affiliated with CONVIVA, Wilhelm Kiwango from the University of Dodoma, Kate Massarella from Wageningen University, Dan Brockington and Judith Krauss from the University of Sheffield, presented ongoing work which explores different aspects of convivial conservation. The viability of insurance schemes in communities living with lions, the social life of ideas, and the commensurability of convivial conservation with the 15th Sustainable Development Goal were discussed with the 30 participants.
This workshop marked the starting point for Wilhelm Kiwango’s one-month stay at the University of Sheffield to plan research activities which will develop and test ideas around convivial conservation in Tanzania. These activities, led by Mathew Bukhi Mabele and Wilhelm Kiwango, are additionally supported by the Global Challenges Research Fund. They will enable CONVIVA to work with communities in Tanzania who have experienced human-wildlife conflict with lions on co-developing ideas which put into practice the research project’s objectives of promoting co-existence, (bio)diversity and social justice.