Eston Kimaswoch
Conservation Education, Participation and Awareness programs Office, Kenya Environmental Conservation Network
I'm a member of the IUCN Commission on Education and Communication (CEC) and Expert in Environment and Natural Resource Conservation through Communication, Education, Participation and Awareness Creation (C.E.P.A) Programs
I teach individuals and school communities on the importance of conserving, preserving and protecting natural resources, biodiversity, and ecosystems. It aims to raise awareness, impart knowledge, and foster attitudes and behaviors that support sustainable living and environmental stewardship in schools.
I am a Primatologist specialized in captive and wild nonhuman primate sociobiology, with a PhD in Evolutionary Biology. I have 17 years of experience in development project management including 5 in Biodiversity Conservation, with experience in East and Central Africa, and the Middle East. I currently live in Ouesso, a city in northern Congo where for the past 2 years I have been coordinating a program called Sustainable Wildlife Management - SWM. SWM is about creating the conditions for rural communities in northern Congo to manage wildlife resources themselves, taking ownership and exploiting them in a sustainable way. As part of the SWM Program, I am responsible for aspects related to the development of alternative activities to hunting (livestock farming), development of social marketing campaigns for more sustainable consumption of animal protein, and mitigation of risk of zoonoses. I therefore often find myself having to involve stakeholders...
My background is mainly in species conservation, education and capacity exchange. I researched mother-young interactions in gorillas and chimpanzees, in captivity and the wild. After that, I worked for three years in Indonesia, where I developed and implemented youth ambassador and community engagement programmes on local and regional scales. I co-founded WildHub, a community of nature conservation professionals, in 2020 and work as their Community Lead. I am furthermore on the Advisory Board of the Durrell Institute of Conservation and Ecology (DICE) at the University of Kent where I obtained my PhD on capacity development for conservation in 2022.