Wildlife and Drought in East Africa
An interview with SNRE Assistant Professor Bilal Butt was recently featured on BBC Radio 4's program, Shared Planet.
As East Africa gets hotter and drier livestock are increasingly being grazed inside wildlife reserves. Inevitably this leads to predation by big cats. What does the future hold for the pastoralists, wildlife and the way of life of the Samburu? Monty Don explores this increasingly difficult issue with a field report from Samburu where a severe drought is taking its toll. Climate change predictions show that conditions will get worse and wildlife experts discuss the challenges ahead for nature and people.
Listen to the interview here.
Dr. Butt is a people-environment geographer with regional specialisations in sub-Saharan Africa and technical expertise in geospatial technologies, ecological monitoring and social-scientific appraisals.
His general research interests lie at the intersection of the natural and social sciences to answer questions of how people and wildlife are coping with, and adapting to changing climates, livelihoods and ecologies in semi-arid regions of sub-Saharan Africa.
Currently, he is investigating the spatiality of livelihood strategies (resource access and utilization) among pastoral peoples under regimes of increasing climatic variability and uncertainty, and the nature of the relationships between wildlife and livestock in East Africa.