This presentation focuses on conservationists and rural communities in northwest Namibia working together to conserve the region’s unique desert-adapted lions. John works with government, NGOs, and communal conservancies on-the-ground to generate mitigation, and, hopefully, prevention solutions to the pernicious effects of human-lion conflict. Social survey and historical research undertaken as part of his doctoral studies has been critical to identifying and addressing these conflict challenges. In particular, this ongoing research has been central to the activation of the community Lion Ranger program, which supports local people taking the lead on conserving northwest Namibia’s iconic desert lions. John will provide background on the region, the lions, and some of the challenges facing residents – including the importance of historical and human geographic methods for identifying challenges, and hoped-for positive outcomes. He will discuss attempts to integrate research into on-the-ground conservation work and explore possible avenues for using research to balance low entropy and high entropy ways of thinking about unique social-ecological problems.
John Heydinger is trained in environmental history and conservation biology. His research examines human-lion conflict as a social-ecological challenge. Partnering with the University of Minnesota Lion Center and Namibia’s Ministry of Environment and Tourism, he serves as the Northwest Lion Information Manager. In 2017 he co-founded the Lion Ranger program. He is currently completing his doctoral work at the University of Minnesota and Macquarie University (Australia).