Lion conservationist Moreangels Mbizah and her colleagues chose the name “Batabilili” for the community guardians they’re training in northern Zimbabwe. The word means “protectors” in the local language, Tonga, and its meaning cuts both ways: the guardians protect people and their livestock from lions, and lions from people. Both jobs are essential in this part […]

The various interventions have, over the past five years, halved incidents of human-carnivore conflict across three districts where WCA works, Mbizah says. In at least two wards, conflict has been eradicated almost entirely. This year, her organization started working in a fourth conflict-prone district, Hurungwe, whose northern end juts into the Zambezi Valley.

Mbizah says that women are proving themselves especially effective as community guardians.

“You have to be that kind of person who really cares about people, who really cares about the communities, and you are constantly interacting with people,” she says. “Even when they give the advice to the farmers, [women] give it in a way that the farmers would understand.”