THE TEAM: WHO WILL CARRY OUT THE WORK?
The
Zambezi Society, under the directorship of Duncan Purchase, will be
in charge of raising funds to make the project possible, managing the resources,
disseminating information and most importantly liasing with all stakeholders
to assist the PWMA to develop a national management strategy for leopard.
Duncan will be working closely with Mr Tapera (Stix) Chimuti, the Director
for Conservation at the Zimbabwe Parks and Wildlife Management Authority.
Dr Gianetta (Netty) Purchase has been employed by the Society to act
as the Project Liason Officer. Dr Purchase has 10 years experience working
with large predators, beginning with an MSc studying a re-introduced population
of cheetahs in Matusadona National Park, Zimbabwe. Between 2002 and 2004,
she initiated and co-ordinated a cheetah conservation project with the aim
of promoting co-existence between cheetahs and farmers in Zimbabwe. She is
also working with a cross-border predator research programme in the Shashe
Limpopo region of Southern Africa. On behalf of the ZPWMA she assessed the
sustainability of leopard offtake in a representative area of Zimbabwe in
2006. She has experience in bringing together people with diverse backgrounds
and helping them work towards a common goal, and is adept at producing succinct
documents that serve to inform a diverse audience. Given her background in
predator research and her skills of facilitation and producing documents,
she is the ideal candidate for the role of Project Liason. She is a member
of the IUCN Cat Specialist Group, the African Lion Working Group and the Global
Cheetah Forum. Dr Purchase is a Zimbabwean resident and has lived in the country
since 1992.
Dr Purchase will be assisted at all times by Roseline Mandisodza, an
experienced ecologist from the ZPWMA, who has worked in the Scientific Services
section of the Authority for many years and who is in the process of a completing
a Master's in Tropical Resource Ecology at the University of Zimbabwe.
The
field work will be supervised by Dr Andrew (Andy) Loveridge from the
Wildlife Conservation Research Unit, Oxford University. Dr Loveridge is an
experienced field biologist with considerable experience working with the
ZPWMA and field based managers in Zimbabwe. He has run the Hwange Lion Research
Project in Hwange National Park, Zimbabwe for the last seven years. The project
is investigating the impact of sport-hunting on the Hwange National Park lion
population. The data from this study is currently assisting the ZPWMA in managing
the lion population, not only in Hwange but at a national level. He has contributed
to a number of scientific papers on carnivores (jackals, lions and sport hunting)
to peer reviewed journals and scientific books, and has experience supervising
students. He is a member of the IUCN affiliated, African Lion Working Group.
Dr Loveridge is a Zimbabwean citizen.
During the course of the project, the aim is to train field staff from the PWMA, the Rural District Councils and where necessary the hunting industry. Once funding is available the project will also employ two students, one at the MPhil level and one at the DPhil level to carry out field research. We will include details of these people as and when they join our team.
