May 14 - June4. A 21 day active learning experience located at two world
heritage sites in rural Zimbabwe. The course follows the ecological and
social challenges of balancing rural lands for wildlife, plantation
agriculture and subsistence herding and farming on Zimbabwes communal
areas.
We visit ancient rock art paintings by hunter gatherer bushman and ruined
brickwork cities by the settled Bantu societies and kingdoms that replaced
them. There are visits to (or visits at camp from) safari guides, hunting
guides, adaptive management bush scientists working in communal areas, a
small gold mine operator and a unique woven furniture export business owner
using ground vines cultivated by subsistence producers in communal areas.
Students live for 10 days at private wildlife refuges; 2 days at a large
integrated plantation export operation; and 1 day with a family in the
communal areas. A service learning day will be spent at a national park
working on fence project to protect endangered rhinos with local African
counter-parts.
Evening lectures and short readings delivered before arriving take place at
an overlook camp site in the Motobo Hills and in Hwange National Park that
cover activities the same day. There are also interpretive wildlife tours by
our hosts at each camp site.
Ecological and Development issues concern millennial trends in
deforestation, the rise of row crop agriculture and associated population
increases, problems of land tenure and property rights, peasant economies,
eco-tourism (benefits and controversies), post-colonial legacies, and
challenges of nation building in African societies during the rise of
democratization across the continent.
The course begins in Johannesburg and Pretoria, South Africa with a visit to
the globally renowned Story of Man Museum before proceeding to Zimbabwe. The
program ends with a group farewell at Victoria Falls for two days before
returning to Johannesburg and flights home.
