![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/a-Moreangels_Mbizah_2026_Zimbabwe_Species_Young_Lion_Resting_03-scaled-1.jpg\")
A young lion at rest. Image courtesy of the Whitley Fund for Nature.<\/p>\n
\n A Zimbabwean conservationist working to reduce conflict between lions and livestock farmers is a winner of one of this year\u2019s Whitley Awards, better known as the \u201cGreen Oscars.\u201d\u00a0The prize money will fund the expansion of the work led by Moreangels Mbizah and her NGO, Wildlife Conservation Action, in a region that is a hotspot for human-carnivore conflict.\u00a0
\n
\nCommunity guardians employed by WCA warn farmers when lions enter their farming areas; promote the use of secure animal enclosures for cattle, goats and sheep, and oversee the installation of solar-powered flashing lights to deter nocturnal raids by lions.\u00a0
\n
\nThese interventions have reduced conflict by up to 98% in at least two rural wards, but habitat loss through the expansion of farms into wildlife migration corridors worries Mbizah and her team.<\/p>\n
See All Key Ideas<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Lion conservationist Moreangels Mbizah and her colleagues chose the name \u201cBatabilili\u201d for the community guardians they\u2019re training in northern Zimbabwe. The word means \u201cprotectors\u201d in the local language, Tonga, and its meaning cuts both ways: the guardians protect people and their livestock from lions, and lions from people.<\/p>\n
Both jobs are essential in this part of the Southern African country. When cattle are killed by lions, the economic losses suffered by families are considerable; when farmers retaliate by killing lions, it worsens the plight of an emblematic species, Panthera leo, now vulnerable to extinction across the continent.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn some cases these lions are female lions and at times some of them would have cubs, so when the females die [at the hands of people] the cubs would probably die [also],\u201d says Mbizah, who is the winner of one of this year\u2019s Whitley Awards, prestigious international conservation prizes given out annually by the U.K.\u2019s Whitley Fund for Nature.<\/p>\n
A young lion at rest. Image courtesy of the Whitley Fund for Nature.<\/p>\n
The 50,000-pound ($67,500) prize money will go toward supporting the work by Mbizah\u2019s NGO, Wildlife Conservation Action, in three additional rural wards \u2014 small administrative areas comprising clusters of villages and around 4,800 people \u2014 that are prone to human-carnivore conflict. This will include the recruitment of six new Batabilili.<\/p>\n
The protectors head out early each morning to look for tracks or droppings and warn farmers about the presence of predators or elephants (Loxodonta africana) so that they can avoid herding their livestock in that direction. They also encourage farmers to strengthen their cattle kraals, or enclosures, to protect them from lions or other nocturnal predators like hyenas (Crocuta crocuta); identify farmers most at risk of animal attacks and encourage them to take other steps to protect their livestock, and their crops from raids by elephants.<\/p>\n
WCA\u2019s work to reduce lion attacks includes the installation of solar-powered flashing lights, four per kraal, to frighten off the predators. It also distributes mobile cattle enclosures, or bomas, to farmers who might not have secure animal pens. One innovation, inspired by the traditional Tonga practice of building houses on stilts to keep them cool, is the construction of raised kraals for small livestock like goats and sheep.<\/p>\n
The raised pens, which are thatched and encircled by wire, sit around 1.5 meters (5 feet) off the ground, with a movable ramp to allow the animals in and out. WCA provides the expertise and materials to build these kraals, though other farmers who\u2019ve witnessed how effective they are at deterring predator attacks have improvised versions on their own.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s a good sign, Mbizah says. \u201cWhen they see that it\u2019s working for somebody else who has benefited, they now start to use their own money to buy those things \u2014 so, it\u2019s what we want to see in terms of sustainability [of the project] in the long term.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/a-Moreangels_Mbizah_2026_Zimbabwe_Raised_Kraal_With_Goats_Inside_Terrestrial_01-scaled-1.jpg\")
Goats in a raised kraal. Image courtesy of the Whitley Fund for Nature.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
Mbizah says that women are proving themselves especially effective as community guardians.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou 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,\u201d she says. \u201cEven when they give the advice to the farmers, [women] give it in a way that the farmers would understand.\u201d<\/p>\n
As the demand for land to grow crops and provide grazing for livestock grows throughout Zimbabwe\u2019s side of the mid-Zambezi Valley, people have encroached on the edges of protected areas and settled in wildlife corridors.<\/p>\n
This increases interactions with wildlife.\u00a0The farmers and herders in these areas had little in the way of external support, and so Mbizah, a zoologist by training, acted to change this.<\/p>\n
There are currently no reliable figures for this region\u2019s lion population, though it\u2019s thought to be well below what it should be. Over the next few years, Mbizah and her team are hoping their work will boost lion numbers to more than 600 individuals.<\/p>\n
It will be a delicate balancing act, requiring a lot of work both inside protected areas and outside, in the farming lands.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs long as lions can find weaker and easy-to-kill prey outside of the protected areas, even if there\u2019s enough [wild prey] inside [the protected areas], they must still go out and hunt within the communities because they don\u2019t have to use much energy to hunt the livestock,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n
One of the four districts where WCA works to ease this conflict is Mbire, which lies within the planned ZIMOZA Transfrontier Conservation Area (TFCA) that will encompass nearly 40,000 square kilometers (15,400 square miles) of farms, safari areas and national parks in Zimbabwe, Mozambique and Zambia.<\/p>\n
The Whitley Award will allow WCA to expand its work into eight wards in Mbire, from five currently. The district is tucked into a corner of northern Zimbabwe, and its woodlands and forests are being rapidly converted to farmland.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/a-Moreangels_Mbizah_2026_Zimbabwe_Mbire_Ward_16_WCA_Staff_Leading_Lion_Light_Installation_And_Distri.jpeg\")
A Wildlife Conservation Action staff member explaining a lion light to residents. Image courtesy of the Whitley Fund for Nature.<\/p>\n
Fr\u00e9d\u00e9ric Baudron, an agronomist who has conducted research in Mbire for more than two decades, says WCA\u2019s work to reduce human-wildlife conflict there is crucial, given the heavy toll it has on people, their crops and their livestock each year. But he warns that current livestock production systems in Mbire are unsustainable.<\/p>\n
Baudron\u2019s research found that between 2007 and 2020, a shift from cotton farming to livestock rearing changed residents\u2019 impact on the landscape<\/a>. Farmers increasingly cut down dominant trees like mupumbu (Faidherbia albida) and mubvee (Kigelia africana) to provide livestock with leaf forage when grazing was scarce, and cleared the land to create grassy fallows.<\/p>\n \u201cProtecting livestock from predation is key for people and large carnivores to coexist,\u201d Baudron says, \u201cbut it may also stimulate livestock production and habitat conversion further if not accompanied by measures that reduce the demand for land.\u201d<\/p>\n Throughout the mid-Zambezi Valley, reframing perspectives on wildlife and conservation may help to shift communities toward a more ecologically sustainable future, and it starts with the youngest generation, Mbizah says.<\/p>\n While her first experience with wildlife was relatively late, at the age of 25 while carrying out her master\u2019s degree research on African wild dogs (Lycaon pictus) in the southeast of the country, that positive experience shaped her purpose and passion as a conservationist. In the places where WCA works, however, children encounter wild animals from a much younger age \u2014 and those experiences are often negative.<\/p>\n An integral part of WCA\u2019s work now is to promote environmental education through conservation clubs at schools, Mbizah says.<\/p>\n \u201cFor some schools we have also been able to take them into the protected area [closest to their district], so that they can see wildlife in a different way, in a positive way, where there is no conflict happening,\u201d she says. \u201cThere is hope for those kids, and even hope that many of them will end up contributing to the protection of their natural resources.\u201d<\/p>\n Banner image: A young lion at rest. Image courtesy of the Whitley Fund for Nature.<\/p>\n Local communities are conservation\u2019s most undervalued asset (commentary)<\/a><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Silvery lining for Java\u2019s endangered gibbon as Rahayu Oktaviani wins Whitley prize<\/a><\/p>\n Citation:<\/p>\n Baudron, F., Guerrini, L., Chimimba, E., Chimusimbe, E., & Giller, K. E. (2022). Commodity crops in biodiversity-rich production landscapes: Friends or foes? The example of cotton in the Mid Zambezi Valley, Zimbabwe. Biological Conservation, 267, 109496. doi:10.1016\/j.biocon.2022.109496<\/a><\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/36c50252038c27337a470c4e2a7339484976a21369d5232cad9f3d9fb5419159.png\")
<\/p>\n