Five-day in person short course
27 – 31 October 2025
Cape Town, South Africa
Living Landscapes short course webpage
Applications close on Monday, 21 July 2025
Why do current conservation paradigms not seem to be able to halt the global biodiversity extinction crisis? Why do many conservation approaches find it so hard to do justice to people and integrate ‘living with’ biodiversity rather than separating people and nature? How does conservation get caught up in politics rather than transformation?
Despite the concern over certain species groups, such as amphibians, the main problem with conservation in the African context are ever-present racial, gender and other inequities that remain persistent and are, at times, getting worse. Social, spatial, and environmental justice issues still receive too little systematic attention and need urgent action. This short course provides a holistic overview of global conservation paradigms, their strengths and weaknesses, and why the need for transformative paradigms, such as convivial conservation and living landscapes. It does so with specific reference to how the biodiversity crisis takes on connotations in the African context, where living with nature has been successful but major issues of who benefits and how remain.
What is being offered?
The Institute for Poverty Land and Agrarian Studies (PLAAS) at the University of the Western Cape (UWC) is hosting a five day in-person short course, aimed at transforming conservation ideas and practices in Africa in biodiverse rural, urban, land, and ocean spaces. This is part of PLAAS’s Living Landscapes in Action project, supported by the Oak Foundation.
What is the course content?
The key themes and concepts covered in the course will be as follows:
- Decolonisation and the historical context of conservation paradigms in Africa and globally and the current biodiversity crisis and how this is unequal across space and time;
- Political ecology in relation to conservation: how to understand conservation in a broader context focused on tackling both the extinction crisis and urgent issues of social justice and spatial justice?
- Alternatives to mainstream conservation and possibility for sustainable transformation;
- Themes in conservation: rights, violence, law, gender, livelihoods, biodiversity.
- Fieldwork trip to contextualise the conservation challenges in key living landscapes
What funding is available?
The short course is fully funded and will be held in Cape Town, South Africa. Funding is available for a small number of participants to attend the short course training in-person in Cape Town.
How will participants be assessed?
Participants will be assessed by means of a pre-contact assignment, a field report and a final submission of a learning portfolio. If participants complete all the assessments, they will receive a Certificate of Completion.
Who should apply?
- Participants working in biodiversity conservation, natural resource management, and governance (land, water, and ocean), including government agencies, conservation organisations, private organisations, community-based organisations working on conservation issues, conservation NGOs, and related agencies in Africa.
- A Bachelor’s degree or equivalent, and a minimum of three to four years of work experience in natural resource management, biodiversity conservation, or environmental governance in Southern Africa.
- Applicants interested in innovative ways to tackle the biodiversity crisis in Africa and beyond, and doing so in a way that puts social justice at the front and centre.
- Applicants interested in building lessons from the history of conservation and applying new ways of thinking going forward.
How to apply
Interested parties should:
- complete the Living Landscapes short course online application form;
- upload a motivation about why you feel you are the best candidate; and
- upload an updated CV.
Shortlisted candidates will be requested to do an online presentation on a specific topic to a review panel before we make a final selection.
Deadine
21 July 2025
Course coordinator:
Professor Moenieba Isaacs
For enquiries linked to the short course, please contact:
Ms Carla Henry
Coordinator: Postgraduate & Continuing Education
Email: plaasshortcourse@plaas.org.za
