How Saving Cattle in Zimbabwe is Saving Its Lions

Female Students learning wildlife tracking at a conservation leadership camp. Credit: Moreangels Mbizah by Busani Bafana (bulawayo)Wednesday, September 09, 2026Inter Press Service BULAWAYO, September 9 (IPS) - A 12-year-old male lion slipped out of Zimbabwe’s Hwange National Park one winter morning and killed a 7-year-old boy in a village it wandered into. The boy, Elton, should have been safe within his village outside Zimbabwe’s largest national park, but a winter morning ended that safety. The lion cut short his life, pushing a grieving community into the centre of a contested frontline: conflict for space between humans and wildlife. The lion was put down.“That day forever remains etched in my mind, and it’s one of the reasons that led me to form the Wildlife Conservation Action,” says zoologist Moreangels Mbizah, recalling how the morning of April 2014 when she found the lion had killed Elton changed her perspective about wildlife coexisting with people.“I realised that protecting lions inside the park meant very little if we were not also protecting people living alongside them,” Mbizah said.Charity Patron, HRH Princess Anne, presented Dr Moreangels Mbizah with a 2026 Whitley...