African Wildlife Economy Institute - AWEI

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African Wildlife Economy Institute - AWEI

Thought leadership, stakeholder engagement, & professional development for Africa's wildlife economy

The African Wildlife Economy Institute (AWEI) is a leading academic think tank in Africa for impactful research, engagement, and teaching on wildlife economies. Institutionally, AWEI is an academic unit within the Faculty of AgriSciences of Stellenbosch University. It conducts and facilitates research and studies, disseminates knowledge and information, and organises and participates in events to promote the wildlife economy in Africa. For more information, please visit the AWEI website: https://www0.sun.ac.za/awei/

01/10/2026

Imagine farming on the edge of a national park. An elephant destroys your crops, or a lion takes your cattle. You carry that loss alone.

Meanwhile, visitors spend thousands on safaris to see those same animals. Lodges, tour operators, and airlines make money, and the government collects fees.

In his article for AWEI, Tinotenda Bhunu asks a simple question: who benefits from wildlife conservation in Africa? His answer is that communities need a real stake in the wildlife they live with. That means secure rights to earn from tourism, run lodges, train as guides, and build businesses around conservation.

As he puts it, people protect what they have reason to value.

Read the full article here: https://buff.ly/CzmW6Ni

25/09/2026

The future of hunting in South Africa depends on two things held together: professional standards that are never lowered, and wider access for new entrants who meet them.

That was the working conclusion of the second SABHSSA Best Practice Workshop, co-hosted by Stellenbosch University’s African Wildlife Economy Institute at SANParks Head Office on 7 August 2026.

A new reflection piece covers what came out of the day: ethics, training, real partnerships, and the communities building livelihoods from wildlife the responsible way.

Read more: https://buff.ly/JF5AC9S

22/09/2026

"Beyond Numbers" was the theme of this year's Southern African Wildlife Management Association conference, and it asked a sharp question: once you have counted the animals, what are you actually managing wildlife for?

AWEI Research Associate and PhD candidate Kumbirai Takawira was there to present the initial results of his doctoral research on Africa's wild meat value chains.

His finding is that the informal trade runs on two separate tracks. One is communal, shaped by customary rules and community-based natural resource management. The other is private, built on game ranching and concessions. Neither works cleanly. Communal systems keep meat within reach of rural households but put pressure on wildlife populations. Private systems manage the resource better, yet the cost of entry keeps most producers out.

The venue made the point on its own. Cradle Moon Lakeside Game Lodge sits on the urban edge of Johannesburg, on land where neighbouring owners took down their fences and brought wildlife back in.

Read Kumbirai's reflection here: https://buff.ly/9xzNSZA

09/09/2026

The Namib gets almost no rain. Temperatures swing to extremes. And yet a thorny creeper called the !Nara has fruited along its Atlantic coastline for millennia, harvested by the Topnaar people.

Namib Desert Oils turns that plant, along with marula, mongongo, and Kalahari melon, into cosmetic oils sold to beauty houses in Europe, China, and North America.

A few things that stand out:

🌱 40 hectares of jojoba plantations in the Erongo Region, worked by 1,500 local women
🌱 Mongongo protein powder feeding more than 400 schoolchildren through a World Food Programme partnership
🌱 FairWild certification achieved in 2024, plus Ecocert organic certification for three of its oils

Mongongo oil, incidentally, has the highest vitamin E content of any oil, and contains a compound that forms a protective film when exposed to UV light.

Naomi June looks at how one company built a supply chain where conservation and community income support each other.

https://buff.ly/Z4rxgXq

04/09/2026

If you missed the webinar on Human-Wildlife Interactions, Risks and Scaling of Game Meat Value Chains hosted by the Academy of Science of South Africa and AWEI on 6 August, you can find the recordings and presentations here: https://wildlifeeconomy.info/events/2026-08/human-wildlife-interactions-risks-and-scaling-game-meat-value-chains

01/09/2026

SAWMA 2026 is underway at Cradle Moon Lakeside Game Lodge in Lanseria, and this year's theme poses the question: what are we actually managing wildlife for?

Two AWEI researchers presented at the conference this week.

Kumbirai Takawira, AWEI Research Associate and PhD candidate, shared his research on sustainability in Africa's wild meat value chains, and how social, environmental, and economic dimensions can be assessed together rather than separately.

Dr Michael 't Sas-Rolfes, AWEI Research Fellow, presented on reconciling conservation values, using rhinos as a case study. Rhino policy is one of the clearest examples of what happens when people want very different things from the same species.

Read more about the conference here: https://buff.ly/YdxUN3x

28/08/2026

What did the 2026 SADC Summit mean for southern Africa's wildlife economy?

The communiqué from Durban ran to 38 points. Wildlife, conservation, and sustainable use did not feature in any of them.

There is still good news. The new SADC Tourism UNIVISA makes it easier for visitors to move between countries on multi-country safari circuits, especially across the Kavango-Zambezi Transfrontier Conservation Area. Work on cutting non-tariff barriers should lower the cost of permits and cross-border logistics.

But financing for transfrontier conservation areas, CITES positioning, and wildlife trade were left off the agenda entirely. Critical minerals development is moving ahead without land-use planning that accounts for conservation.

Supported indirectly, but institutionally invisible. Our new analysis unpacks what that means for the region.

https://wildlifeeconomy.info/article/sadc-wildlife-economy-2026-summit

14/08/2026

Does the law understand edible insects?
Find out in a fascinating webinar hosted by the University of Venda's Institute for Rural Development (IRD), in partnership with the African Wildlife Economy Institute.

24 & 25 August from 10:30 to 12:00

South Africa’s edible insect market has long sustained rural livelihoods and cultural practices, yet it remains informal, poorly understood, and largely absent from policy. Without reliable market data, progress toward formalisation has been slow.

This webinar will engage policymakers, and academics in policy dialogue to build on fieldwork findings from the project "Mapping South Africa's Edible Insect Markets and Trade Policy Imperatives" and advocate for streamlined regulations.

https://wildlifeeconomy.info/events/2026-08/does-law-understand-edible-insects

05/08/2026

What if Africa's wildlife did not depend on foreign aid to survive?

For decades, donors funded much of the continent's conservation work. The closure of USAID in February 2025 showed how quickly that support can disappear, leaving communities, private landowners, and NGOs responsible for wildlife but with far fewer resources.

A new AWEI article looks at another path. Building on the ideas of Ghanaian economist Dr George Ayittey, it asks what conservation might look like if local people were treated as rights-holders and custodians, free to benefit lawfully and sustainably from wildlife. The starting points are secure property rights, voluntary exchange, and the rule of law.

The article’s central point is worth sitting with: wildlife tends to flourish where people have a lasting reason to protect it and a fair share in its benefits.

Could this be a way forward for Africa? Have a read and share your thoughts.

https://wildlifeeconomy.info/articles/conservation-beyond-aid-george-ayitteys-classical-liberalism

24/07/2026

When a species is protected under CITES, we tend to assume trade will simply decline. But what actually happens next?

In a new article for AWEI, Ms Lydia Bhebe looks at a fascinating discussion from the CITES Animals Committee (AC34): biological science tells us which species may need protection, but not how a trade rule will play out once it hits real markets and communities.

The same restriction can work in one country and backfire in another. Sometimes demand shifts to another species. Sometimes trade moves into illegal channels. And often, the people closest to the trade (local harvesters, communities, resource users) are barely consulted. In one review, fewer than 2% of proposals involved Indigenous Peoples and local communities.

From rhinos and pangolins to southern Africa's succulents, the lesson is the same: conservation happens in human systems.

Give it a read and let us know what you think. Should conservation decisions weigh economics and community knowledge as much as biology?

https://wildlifeeconomy.info/article/wildlife-trade-policy-outcomes-cites

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African Wildlife Economy Institute, Faculty Of AgriSciences, Stellenbosch University, Private Bag X1
Stellenbosch
7602

Website

https://wildlifeeconomy.info/

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