INCEF & Wildlife Conservation Society team up in Sourthern Sudan
In November, INCEF Program Officer Seamus Gallagher spent two weeks with the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) in Juba, Southern Sudan, helping give the animals that survived Sudan's long civil war a chance to survive the peace.
Seamus trained WCS staff in preparation for an outreach campaign to educate villagers, law enforcement personnel and authorities on the importance of wildlife to Southern Sudan and the government's ban on hunting.
Southern Sudan is home to elephant, giraffe, lion, several types of antelope, and other important wildlife species. Most significantly, Southern Sudan boasts one of the largest migrations of large mammals on earth: the annual movement of around 1.3 million kob, tiang and other antelope across the landscape in search of water.
Key to the WCS education campaign are locally produced Arabic language films created in collaboration with INCEF. These films give Southern Sudanese audiences a chance – often for the first time in their lives – to marvel at footage of the wildlife sharing their land, as well as to learn from officials about the hunting ban and why it is needed.
To make sure the message reaches the intended audiences, WCS education teams will use INCEF's education methodology – including portable projection kits – as they travel from village to village.
The education campaign kicked off in late November, and will continue into 2011.
