Africa

[Tiredretiredlawyer]

https://www.fodors.com/news/news/meet-t ... r-equality

Meet the Women Fighting Against Poaching in Africa, While Also Advocating for Gender Equality

Zimbabwe

Twenty-eight-year-old Nyaradzo Hoto grew up in poverty in a small village in Zimbabwe. She’s a survivor of domestic abuse and a single mother. Life could have turned out very differently for Hoto in a country that, up until recently, had the lowest life expectancy for women in the world. But today, Hoto is a sergeant in Africa’s first armed, all-women anti-poaching unit, the Akashinga. She’s in university and is able to support herself and her child.

Meaning, “the brave ones,” the Akashinga team not only put their lives at risk every day to protect elephants from ivory poachers but empowers other women to play an active role in conservation in their communities, offering a way out of cycles of abuse and oppression. The 87 women that became part of the inaugural ranger team were all survivors of sexual assault and domestic violence, AIDS orphans, or sex workers. “Protecting wildlife in nature is the most important thing but educating others to respect and share conservation values is rewarding in itself,” says Hoto.

In many countries, community roles that involve food production and the management of natural resources can give women a more intimate understanding of the natural world, expertise which they bring to conservation work, according to a comprehensive review by the Parks Stewardship Forum. Within the first three years, the Akashinga helped drive down elephant poaching across Zimbabwe’s lower Zambezi Valley region by 80%.

[Tiredretiredlawyer]

https://www.fodors.com/news/news/meet-t ... r-equality

Uganda’s First Wildlife Veterinarian

A leading scientist working to save East Africa’s endangered mountain gorillas, Dr. Gladys Kalema-Zikusoka made history at age 25 when she became the first wildlife veterinarian with the Uganda Wildlife Authority. At the time, there were no women doing fieldwork with wildlife in Uganda, but that’s changing. “If [women] see that I am heading up an NGO, they get encouraged and think, we can also do the same,” says Kalema-Zikusoka. Since then, the native Ugandan has been awarded numerous accolades for her conservation work and been named a National Geographic explorer.

[Tiredretiredlawyer]

https://www.fodors.com/news/news/meet-t ... r-equality

A Conservation Role Model in Rwanda

Claudine Tuyishime is the conservation and community officer at Singita Kwitonda and leads mountain gorilla conservation efforts in the surrounding Volcanoes National Park. Tuyishime is responsible for managing relationships with all of Singita’s conservation stakeholders, including local authorities, NGOs, and community members. She’s currently working on an intensive reforestation project that will become part of a critical protected buffer area for gorillas in the park.

Tuyishime says the empowerment of women is at the core of all her work at Singita. “Gender equality is becoming common in other areas, including politics and economic development, so why not conservation?” Part of why Tuyishime believes it’s important to get women involved is because of their role as caretakers and mothers. “Conservation knowledge will be transferred easily into future generations once more women get into leadership roles,” says Tuyishime.

[Tiredretiredlawyer]

https://www.fodors.com/news/news/meet-t ... r-equality

A Community Outreach Leader in Namibia

Women’s unique opportunity to further conservation knowledge as caretakers and teachers is a sentiment echoed by Agnes Tjirare, the community engagement administrator for Wilderness Safaris in Namibia. “Women transfer wildlife and environmental protection skills to young children while nurturing them, converting them to be friends of nature,” says Tjirare, who spearheads the ecotourism company’s Children in the Wilderness non-profit in Namibia. The organization aims to develop the next generation of conservation leaders through engaging and educating children, including young girls, in conservation issues in rural areas of Africa.

The importance of empowering girls is central to the non-profit’s efforts. Tjirare engages local partners and stakeholders to ensure young women in rural areas are not only educated in the importance of conservation, but have the opportunity to attend career fairs, meet with university faculty, and are educated in reproductive health and legal rights in order to be able to make better decisions for their own lives.

[Tiredretiredlawyer]

https://www.fodors.com/news/news/meet-t ... r-equality

The Woman Protecting Uganda’s Kyambura Chimpanzees

Stella Ashabe runs the Volcanoes Safaris Partnership Trust, a non-profit organization that connects Volcanoes Safaris’ luxury lodges—pioneers in gorilla and chimpanzee ecotourism in Rwanda and Uganda—to the neighboring communities and conservation activities. Ashabe’s most recent initiative is the Kyambura Gorge Eco-Tourism Project, which aims to safeguard a family of 28 chimpanzees in the gorge while supporting the local community. The chimps that live there are at risk, isolated from the rest of the jungle in Queen Elizabeth National Park as a result of deforestation.

As part of the project, Ashabe runs the Kyambura Women’s Coffee Cooperative, which provides jobs for women in the area while involving them in deescalating human-wildlife conflict. “The cooperative members became ambassadors [for the chimps] in the community, and eventually the trapping and killing of chimps stopped,” says Ashabe. Women who go through the cafe training program are often hired by the lodges afterward. Guests can help the cause by planting a tree seedling in the Kyambura gorge buffer zone, which was created to protect the fragile ecosystem from encroachment and contribute to its long-term conservation.

[RTH10260]

Uganda

Ugandan MPs pass bill imposing death penalty for homosexuality
Human rights campaigners condemn bill introducing capital and life imprisonment sentences

Samuel Okiror in Kampala
Tue 21 Mar 2023 20.19 GMT

MPs in Uganda have passed a controversial anti-LGBTQ+ bill, which would make homosexual acts punishable by death, attracting strong condemnation from rights campaigners.

All but two of the 389 legislators voted late on Tuesday for the hardline anti-homosexuality bill, which introduces capital and life imprisonment sentences for gay sex and “recruitment, promotion and funding” of same-sex “activities”.

“A person who commits the offence of aggravated homosexuality and is liable, on conviction to suffer death,” reads the bill presented by Robina Rwakoojo, the chairperson for legal and parliamentary affairs.

Just two MPs from the ruling party, Fox Odoi-Oywelowo and Paul Kwizera Bucyana, opposed the new legislation.

“The bill is ill-conceived, it contains provisions that are unconstitutional, reverses the gains registered in the fight against gender-based violence and criminalises individuals instead of conduct that contravenes all known legal norms,” said Odoi-Oywelowo.

“The bill doesn’t introduce any value addition to the statute book and available legislative framework,” he said.

An earlier version of the bill prompted widespread international criticism and was later nullified by Uganda’s constitutional court on procedural grounds. The bill will now go to President Yoweri Museveni, who can veto or sign it into law. In a recent speech he appeared to express support for the bill.

One MP in the chamber, John Musila, wore a gown reading: “Say No To Homosexual, Lesbianism, Gay.”

The bill marks the latest in a string of setbacks for LGBTQ+rights in Africa, where homosexuality is illegal in most countries. In Uganda, a largely conservative Christian country, homosexual sex was already punishable by life imprisonment.




https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/ ... osexuality

[AndyinPA]

IIRC, this was pushed over the last few decades by American RWNJs. This is probably what they would like for the US.