Nyika Vwaza Trust Events
Save the date in your diary, for the next Nyika Vwaza Trust London event. This year our speaker
will be Jonny Hanson, former trustee of NVT UK and an environmental social scientist who is studying
whether we could and whether we should share our landscapes with apex predators such as lynx, wolves
and bears. His book on that subject has just been published.
Jonny has much fascinating experience to share. He set up and managed Northern Ireland’s first community farm. He was raised between Malawi and Ireland, and has a PhD in snow leopard conservation from the University of Cambridge. And he is developing his own conservation gin brand called Malawi Mountain© Gin.
In addition to having highly interesting subjects to talk about, he is a very entertaining speaker so
please do make up your mind to come and listen to his talk.
There will be a short update on Nyika-Vwaza UK Trust activities and time after Jonny’s talk to
network with old and new friends with an interest in Malawi.
Detailed Information about the event will be up on the website and in our autumn 2025 newsletter.
Peter Lawrance RIP
It is with great sadness I write to inform you that Peter Lawrance passed away on 5th December. May his soul rest in peace.
Peter served as the Nyika-Vwaza Trust’s Hon Secretary and Treasurer for the last ten years. As well as overseeing the day to day running of the Trust Peter played a key role in developing our Environmental Education Programme in Malawi. We will miss him.
Our thoughts and prayers are with Jane and the family.
Tom Lupton
Chairman
Nyika Vwaza (UK) Trust
We are delighted to share with our supporters that the Wildlife and and Environment Source Book for Primary schools in Malawi was officially launched on 29th August 2024.
The launch of the book is the culmination of a programme implemented by the Lilongwe Wildlife Trust which NVT has supported for the last seven years.
Please do take a look at the Wildlife and Environment Source Book – and even better use it in a school near you.
We have just updated the Nyika and Vwaza bibliography. We hope you will find this useful.
If you are aware of additional material that you think should be included please let us know.
Cooperation between people and wild animals is rare. Yet in many parts of Africa, wax-eating birds called greater honeyguides (Indicator indicator) lead honey-hunters to the bees’ nests and both get their reward, with the humans harvesting the honey and the birds eating the wax. The fascinating part is how the interaction works. Human calls alert the birds to the fact the hunters are seeking help, and vary in different locations. It’s very clever, yet simple – and it works.
The speaker, Prof. Claire Spottiswoode, is an evolutionary biologist from the FitzPatrick Institute of African Ornithology at the University of Cape Town, and the Department of Zoology at the University of Cambridge. She is passionate about her particular interest in the ecology, evolution and conservation of species interactions, so who better to inform and entertain us about this intriguing topic.
A report on the talk and links for further information are in the Spring 2024 Newsletter. Newsletter_Issue_38
We are delighted to share David and Meridith Happold’s new book: The Mammals of Malawi.
The Happold’s have kindly made this freely available as a pdf, and found by following this link:
The Mammals of Malawi
“Conservation in the 21st Century; what is it and who is it for?”
Our speaker was Dr Leejiah Dorward, a conservation scientist from the University of Bangor, Wales, with a Master’s degree in conservation science and a Doctorate on improving understanding of the socio-ecological complexity of human-carnivore interactions. Conservation is changing, as we learned from our 2021 speaker, Jonathan Timberlake, but how it is changing is a much-debated topic. Leejiah is very well qualified to add to the debate with his talk: “Conservation in the 21st Century; what is it and who is it for?” The talk drew on Leejiah’s experiences in Tanzania , as well as in Northern Malawi.
Leejiah’s presentation can be viewed on the following link:
Conservation in the 21st Century; what is it and who is it for?
We are delighted to announce that NVT are seeking applications for research grants. Full details are given in the following link NVT Research Research Grants
