Mordecai Ogada, an internationally known conservationist and carnivore ecologist, will visit the West Virginia University campus on March 30 to present the 2016 Maurice Brooks Lecture.

Ogada will present “Conservation Revolution and Wildlife Tourism in East Africa: The Fallacy of Selling Intrinsic Values Based on Exotic Perceptions” at 7 p.m. in 1001 Agricultural Sciences Building.

During his presentation, Ogada will look critically at the relationship between conservation and wildlife tourism interests in East Africa. He will also examine the community conservation revolution and whether it really is a new direction or a throwback to the injustices that underpinned the origins of conservation structures.

For the last 16 years, Ogada has been involved in conservation work focused on human-wildlife conflict mitigation and carnivore conservation in Kenya and other parts of Africa. His biological work includes studies on lion, hyena, cheetah, African wild dog and otters, and much of his energy has been devoted to the area of community based conservation, wildlife policy and wetlands ecology.

From 2009-11, he developed cheetah conservation strategies for Ethiopia, South Sudan and Uganda as the regional coordinator for the Wildlife Conservation Society cheetah conservation program.

Ogada was executive director of Laikipia Wildlife Forum from 2011-14 where his work focused on the perceptions of conservation and how they influence communities and practitioners in the field of natural resource management.

Currently, Ogada coordinates a partnership project between the African Conservation Centre and McGill University which seeks to strengthen conservation linkages between institutions and habitats in Kenya and Northern Tanzania. He is also co-authoring a book on the history, politics and ethical challenges facing conservation practice in Kenya.

The lecture honors the late Maurice Brooks, a professor of wildlife management in the WVU Davis College of Agriculture, Natural Resources and Design School of Natural Resources, who was described by peers as a “renaissance naturalist” of the Appalachian region.

The Maurice Brooks Lectureship Series was established through gifts to the WVU Foundation, a private, non-profit corporation that generates and provides support for WVU.

The lecture is hosted by the School of Natural Resources and the Friends of Maurice Brooks.

The lecture is free and open to the public, and refreshments will be served following the presentation.

-WVU-

law/3/21/16

CONTACT: Lindsay Willey, Communications Manager
304.293.2381, Lindsay.Willey@mail.wvu.edu

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