Botswana research programme - Getting started

The Fauna and Flora Nature Conservation Foundation and the Faculty of Forest Engineering of the University of Sopron have signed a cooperation agreement to support higher education in wildlife management at the University. As a first step, the Foundation supports the preparation of theses and dissertations in the form of a competition. This support will not only cover the purchase of tools, programmes and databases for the preparation of theses and dissertations, but will also provide research areas for their implementation. In addition, at the beginning of this academic year, the Foundation launched a very special initiative for a study trip abroad to Botswana. Thanks to the goodwill of the Founder, several students and accompanying teachers were able to apply and received full funding to participate.

Photo by Dorottya Gaál

The study tour's Botswana partner, Walk Botswana Safari, has been organising eight-week wildlife and conservation field trips for US-based university students for many years. They have a long-standing partnership with Stanford University, among others. The founder of the Fauna and Flora Foundation, Erika Csányi, who after completing her studies in economics at the University of Sopron this year obtained her degree in Wildlife Management Management at the University of Sopron, as a committed hunter and conservationist, considered it important to make such a study trip available to the wildlife engineering students of the University of Sopron and therefore provided the Foundation with a significant amount of money for the organisation of the study trip. The application was conditional on a good academic record and at least two completed semesters in the Bsc in Forest Engineering at the Faculty of Forest Engineering. To help them understand the objectives of the study tour, the Foundation invited and hosted the founders of Walk Botswana Safari, Robyn and Gareth Flemix, together with the Institute of Wildlife and Vertebrate Zoology, who gave a presentation on their programme. Robyn is a wildlife biologist with degrees in both natural history and conservation. He now lives in Maun, Botswana, at the gateway to the Okavango Delta, one of the last true wildernesses of our time. Robyn has spent the last few years looking for opportunities and resources that will enable students interested in living natural history to gain experience in active nature and wildlife conservation.

Photo by Dorottya Gaál

The programmes will provide students with practical skills that they can use and add to their own experiences to help protect near-natural habitats. Robyn is currently the Director of Walk Botswana Safaris. She and her husband Gareth Flemix co-own and run their other company, Communications for Conservation. Gareth is not only a professional hunter, organizer of photo safaris, horse safaris and conservation safaris, but also a dedicated conservationist, which he not only practices but also teaches.

Those interested in the programme were required to submit an application in English and to undergo an oral motivational interview.

The Foundation received six valid student applications by the deadline, which were evaluated by the invited professional committee and the participants were selected following an oral interview (6 March). Four wildlife engineering students from our university - Evelin Békési, Artúr Janovics, Marcell Kaszás and Győző Naszvadi - were awarded the grants. Thanks to the generous support of the Foundation, the small team was also accompanied by two lecturers from the Institute of Wildlife Management and Zoology, Dr. Ferenc Jánoska and Dr. Gyula Sándor.

The Fauna and Flora Foundation also advertised the opportunity to participate among the members of the "Csányi Foundation for Children", from where, following a similar application procedure, two people won the opportunity to participate. Dorottya Gaál is a student of International Economics at Corvinus University of Budapest and Valentin György-Dávid, who has already graduated from Corvinus University of Budapest in the field of Agricultural Engineering for Economic and Rural Development.

The Foundation's support for the successful students and their teachers was full, meaning that all costs were covered, from the mandatory and recommended vaccinations, to airfares and accommodation, to the cost of attending the research camp.

The study trip lasted three weeks. During this period, the participants received theoretical and practical training in three protected areas of different status in Botswana (Khwai Community Conservation Area, Moremi Game Reserve and Nxai Pan National Park), each with almost the same time frame, on the fauna and flora of Africa, conservation and the conflict between man and nature. The final week was a week of charitable activities in the town of Maun.

After completing the vaccinations and several face-to-face meetings, the students set off on the long journey on 24 June and arrived in Maun, Botswana's city of 50,000 inhabitants, at 13:00 on 25 June. There, a small team was waiting for them and everything was ready for the journey to the bush.

Photo by Dorottya Gaál

All three of our camps, built in protected terrain, were nomadic camps equipped with every comfort. We stayed in single and double tents, with toilets (not English) and showers (once a day, but it was always very nice). We had very kind and hard-working helpers who cooked for us and tried to improve our comfort (with hand-washing water, coffee and tea) and make it a little worse with wake-up calls at dawn.

The programme was closely aligned to the agreed and discussed curriculum, with a topic for each day to prepare from the textbook provided. During the study trip, the following topics were covered:

Camera trapping and research methodologies, Spoor Transect, Community based Conservation, Animal Behaviour, Bird Surveys, Herbivore Surveys, Identify and determine ungulate demographics, Predator Ecology and Research Techniques, Human-Wildlife Conflict, etc.

Space limitations prevent us from describing all our adventures, experiences and the wealth of knowledge we have learned and experienced. We hope, however, that the following articles will give you a taste of one of the defining experiences of our lives.

Erika Csányi, Dr Ferenc Jánoska and Dr Gyula Sándor

Cover photo by Dorottya Gaál

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