Some of you may have heard the terrible news from Zimbabwe, about the murder of Greg Gibbard from Painted Dog Conservation. I have not commented until now because I didn’t know what to say.
My thoughts go out to Greg’s family and friends, to everyone at PDC, and to the conservation community at large.
If you are wondering what you can do to help, think about supporting PDC in their moment of need. Greg would appreciate that.
Alison
Shimmer and Shukas Field Sketch, watercolor 11×14″ by Alison Nicholls
The Herd, acrylic on canvas 24×20″ by Alison Nicholls
Living Walls, acrylic on canvas 29×29″ by Alison Nicholls
Although I had painted landscapes and wildlife, I never thought I was interested in painting or sketching people. But as I got to know Botswana better, I did try my hand at a couple of pieces. However, I was never comfortable sketching people without their permission and was too shy to ask. As with so many things in life, it was only after I left Africa that I realized what a chance I had been missing all those years. But luckily for me, it was also at this time that I became familiar with the African People & Wildlife Fund in Tanzania and arranged with Dr Laly Lichtenfeld to spend time at the project sketching. While I was there I learned about APW’s work with the local communities and saw firsthand some of the complex conservation issues facing both people and wildlife. I knew I wanted to include these issues in my work and began composing some conservation-themed paintings which show issues like human-wildlife conflict.
My visits to APW grew out of my visit to the Painted Dog Conservation project back in 2007, but with APW I moved into the realm of painting people. Frankly, when I first visited, I had absolutely no idea how much I was going to enjoy this! The conservation of wildlife and habitat depends on the decisions that will be made by people who share the land with wildlife. If their lives are made easier by the elimination of wildlife then it will be difficult for wildlife to survive and roam freely. The work of conservation organizations can help to provide workable solutions, but it is the people who will make the ultimate decisions – which is why I am pleased to finally incorporate both the people and wildlife of Africa in my art.
These days I make a donation to African conservation from the sale of every original painting, original field sketch and limited edition giclée and I aim to use my work to explain complex conservation issues and highlight solutions which are being used in the field.
Thank you for following my week of Art Challenge posts, I hope it gave you an insight into my artistic journey. Life as an artist has its ups and downs but I never want to do anything else. Its been a wild adventure so far. Long may it continue!
Alison
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Art Inspired by Africa
Living Walls, acrylic 29×29″ by Artist Alison Nicholls
Living Walls
Acrylic 29×29” by Alison Nicholls
Human-wildlife conflict is increasing across the globe as the human population expands and people compete with wildlife for land, food and water. People usually prevail and wildlife is squeezed into ever smaller ‘islands’ of protected land, but there are places where these trends are being reversed, where people and wildlife share natural resources for their mutual benefit. On the Maasai Steppe in northern Tanzania, the African People & Wildlife Fund consulted with local communities and created Living Wall bomas, fortified corrals, in which families keep their livestock overnight.
Traditional bomas are built of piles of thorny acacia brush which must be replenished every few months, often leading to deforestation in the area. Even then, predators can get into a poorly constructed boma, or their presence can panic livestock who break out into the bush, where they are more vulnerable to attack. In the past, people might retaliate against predators by tracking and spearing the animal responsible for killing livestock, but today livestock carcasses can be laced with lethal agricultural poisons which kill any animal, bird or insect that feeds from the carcass. For this reason, predator numbers have been plummeting (along with those of vital scavengers like vultures). If livestock can be kept safe in bomas at night, when most attacks occur, then people will have no reason to retaliate against predators and their numbers can recover.
A Living Wall boma differs from a traditional boma in several ways. It is made of chain-link fencing held up by living fence-posts cut from native Commiphora trees. The trees are not killed by the cutting of thick branches for fence-posts, and the chain-link wire ensures that the livestock cannot break out of the boma. My Living Walls painting shows a cow, a goat, a sheep, a donkey, a spotted hyena, a leopard and a lion, linked by the crossed lines of the chain-link wire. Some of the lines are shaped into the distinctive branches of the Commiphora, with their trifoliate leaves (leaves with 3 leaflets). Vegetation of all types grows up and around a Living Wall, creating an impenetrable barrier so that the Living Wall cannot be breached and livestock and predators cannot see each other, which is why the eyes of each animal in the painting are covered with Commiphora leaves. The fact that the painting shows livestock and predators as being physically close and linked together by the Living Wall, mirrors the situation on the Maasai Steppe, where they share the same land and the future of both are interlinked.
400 Living Walls are now in operation on the Maasai Steppe, protecting 75,000 head of livestock nightly. The walls are in great demand and no livestock protected by a living wall have been killed since the program started in 2008. Living Walls are installed in areas where livestock depredation is high, so the installation of just a few Living Walls can lead to a drastic reduction in attacks on livestock. Local monitoring shows predator attacks have dropped precipitously, as have retaliatory killings of predators by livestock owners. Living Walls are changing attitudes to predators and they allow the Maasai to continue to live with lions, an animal of vital cultural importance.
The original acrylic painting of Living Walls is available for sale, priced at US$4800. If it is sold privately I will donate 40% of the sale price to APW. If it sells during an exhibition where the venue collects a commission (usually between 10-40%), APW will still receive a minimum of 10%. Limited edition giclées are also available with a 20% donation to APW from the sale of each piece.
To see this painting, join me at The Explorers Club on September 29th to hear about my conservation-themed art based on visits to the African People & Wildlife Fund in Tanzania and Painted Dog Conservation in Zimbabwe. If you can’t make it to the club you can Live Stream the Lecture Here at 7pm EST.
Until next time…
Alison
Art Inspired by Africa and Conservation
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Artist Alison Nicholls trying to say Conservation Conversation 10 times quickly!
A great deal of my conversations are about conservation (try saying that fast 10 times!) and they often lead to topics that seem depressingly impossible to resolve. Climate change, corruption, poaching, human-wildlife conflict…I could go on. As James K. Sheppard, a conservation scientist with the San Diego Zoo, told mongabay.com “conservation biology has arguably become the most depressing of the sciences”. He noted how potential conservationists of the future with optimistic personalities may be discouraged from joining the ranks of conservationists by the general doom and gloom that can pervade discussions in the field.
But the article by Jeremy Hance went further than this and aimed to highlight some of the great achievements in conservation biology today. And, if you look, there are many. So if you are feeling full of despair, read this article and take hope:
Mongabay.com: Why conservationists need a little hope
And if you’d like more evidence of conservation successes, join me at The Explorers Club on September 29th to hear about my conservation-themed art based on visits to the African People & Wildlife Fund in Tanzania and Painted Dog Conservation in Zimbabwe.
Until next time…
Alison
Art Inspired by Africa and Conservation
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On The Edge by ANicholls
On The Edge
Acrylic on Canvas 24×30” by Alison Nicholls
During my visit to the Painted Dog Conservation project in Zimbabwe, I spent time with Esther van der Meer who was conducting research on the painted dogs (also known as African wild dogs, Lycaon pictus). We spent several days visiting waterholes both inside and outside Hwange National Park while she recorded details of kudu & impala, the main prey species for the dogs in this area. I was only present for a very small part of Esther’s research but I was interested in knowing her findings so after she completed and successfully defended her Doctoral Thesis, she sent me a copy. This painting was based on her work. Is the Grass Greener on the Other Side? Testing the Ecological Trap Hypothesis for African Wild Dogs in and around Hwange National Park, Zimbabwe.
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On The Edge shows Painted Dogs (African wild dogs, Lycaon pictus) leaving Hwange National Park in Zimbabwe, and entering the buffer zone – a mix of commercial farms, communal areas, trophy hunting & photographic safari areas which border the park. The right-hand side of the painting represents the national park while the left-hand side represents the buffer zone. The border of the painting consists of the spoor (tracks) of kudu, impala, lion, hyena, people and vehicles.
Painted dogs in this area are choosing to live in the buffer zone rather than in relative safety of the national park. Research has shown that both the national park and the buffer zone contain similar densities of the dogs’ main prey species, impala and kudu but the buffer zone contains more dense vegetation. This results in higher hunting success and shorter chases, leading to better fed dogs and larger litters of pups. Lions and hyenas, which may steal kills, or even kill dogs & their pups, are also less likely to be encountered in the buffer zone. On The Edge illustrates this with consistent numbers of impala and kudu tracks throughout, but more lion and hyena tracks inside the national park (right-hand side of painting).
Dogs use these seemingly sound ecological clues when making decisions about where to live and hunt. As a result they are abandoning safer habitat inside Hwange National Park, selecting territories inside or close to the buffer zone and thereby exposing themselves to increased human activity. This is illustrated in On The Edge by the people & vehicle tracks which are only found in the buffer zone (left-hand side of painting). Dogs in the buffer zone are being snared, shot and run over on the roads at a rate faster than they can reproduce, however they seem unable to take humans and the danger of being near them, into account when deciding to live in or near the buffer zone.
How can conservationists use this research to help dogs survive this Ecological Trap? Forcibly keeping dogs inside the national park would require a fence, which would restrict the movement of other species. Altering the vegetation density and lion/hyena numbers inside the park to entice dogs to stay there, would be a daunting task and would have ramifications for the entire habitat. One viable conservation option is to make the buffer zone safer for dogs and other species by reducing snares, limiting speed limits on roads and educating people about living with dogs – all of which are areas of focus for the Painted Dog Conservation project.
On the Edge was inspired by Dr van der Meer’s 2011 Doctoral Thesis Is the Grass Greener on the Other Side? Testing the Ecological Trap Hypothesis for African Wild Dogs in and around Hwange National Park, Zimbabwe. 30% of the proceeds from the sale of the painting will be donated to the Painted Dog Conservation project to help make the buffer zone safer for Painted Dogs.
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On The Edge is an original acrylic on canvas, 24×30″, priced at US$3500 excluding taxes and shipping. Please contact me for details or visit www.NichollsWildlifeArt.com to see more of my African Inspired Art, including smaller originals, field sketches and limited edition giclées.
A donation is made towards conservation in Africa from every sale.
Dr van der Meer is now working to conserve cheetahs in Zimbabwe. You can read more about her work by visiting the Cheetah Zimbabwe Facebook page.
Until next time…
Alison
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