Monicah Mbiba, Zimbabwe, Doctoral Candidate in Animal, Plant and Environmental Science at the University of the Witwatersrand. Since obtaining my BSc in Forestry and Wildlife Management from the National University of Science and Technology in Zimbabwe in 2008, I developed a keen interest in the area of natural resource management in southern Africa, particularly the implications for rural livelihoods. I completed an MSc in Environment and Development at a university specialising in rural African Development, the University of Reading in the UK.

I joined the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg in March 2013 studying on a particular topic entitled ‘Ecological sustainability, social capital and rural livelihoods in the central lowveld of Mpumalanga Province, South Africa’, which also is at the interface of the environment and the development rural communities, an area I am passionate about. The poverty in Zimbabwe and other southern African countries, my own personal experiences and struggles growing up and my education has taught me the far reaching impacts of poverty and the complexities faced in trying to address this evil. I have a desire to make a change in society through community-based natural resource use and conservation.