Gorongosa 2024-FULL-FINAL - Flipbook - Page 45
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GORONGOSA SP ECIAL
Karen Bailey, an assistant professor in the Department of Environmental Studies at the University of Colorado, Boulder, has been studying
human-wildlife interactions in Africa, Asia, and the United States, and is
interested in how, “when communities have the desire to figure out alternative ways to coexist and to share the landscape with wildlife,” she said,
they can partner with researchers to find solutions that are adapted to their
needs and their vision of the future. She points to her ongoing research in
Thailand, where a community with elephants is considering a switch from
farming pineapples, which elephants love, to farming lemongrass and
galangal, which elephants don’t like as much and which are still useful and
appropriate for their cuisine and economically viable. Or to her experiences
in Colorado, where bear problems abound, and the state is supporting
community-led efforts to create bear-smart communities.
“Maybe it’s policies or mandate, or maybe it’s resources to make it
easier for people to take those actions,” she said, “but always focusing on
the community and doing something in a way that’s responsive to their
ideas around coexistence.”
Gonçalves, manager of Gorongosa’s elephant ecology project, said
coexistence is not a static ideal, not a static thing. “Coexistence is such
a fragile thing,” she said. “In one moment, you are there, elephants and
people are fine. There’s no crop raiding. There’s nothing. We’re coexisting. And in another moment, one thing happens, and everyone is crying
out to announce that there is conflict and there is not coexistence anymore. We need to start understanding that it is about a balance and an
equilibrium.”
Jori Lewis writes about the environment and agriculture mostly from the Global
South. In 2018, she received the Whiting Grant for Creative Nonfiction for her new book,
Slaves for Peanuts. She is also a contributing editor with Adi Magazine, a literary magazine
covering global politics. She splits her time between Illinois and Dakar, Senegal.
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