Wildlife Management. Comparing Global North and Global South

On March 27, the seminar "Wildlife Management: A North-South Global Comparison" was held at the University of Florence, led by Silvia Zanini, a member of the LUMEN research unit at the University of Trieste. The event was part of the seminar activities of the LUMEN Project and the EVE – Exchanging Visions of the Environment Project, organized by the School of Political Science of the University of Florence in collaboration with the Department of Legal Sciences of the same university.

The aim of these seminars is to foster dialogue and mutual learning between Africa and Europe on issues related to environmental protection, ecological justice, and the participation of local communities. 

The March 27 session opened with an intervention by multimedia artist Justin Randolph Thompson, co-founder of Black History Month Florence, who shared the story of his grandfather — an African American geoscientist committed to increasing minority representation in the environmental sciences. Through words, images, and sound, Thompson offered a powerful reflection on the connection between memory, identity, and ecological justice.

Following this, Silvia Zanini, in collaboration with the LUMEN Project CSAL, explored the issue of managing conflicts between humans and wild animals, using the wolf in Europe and the elephant in Africa as examples: two cases in which population growth, resulting from successful conservation policies, is generating intense tensions with local communities.

The EVE seminars are curated by Professors Veronica Federico and Maria Stella Rognoni, members of the LUMEN UNIFI research unit, who advocate for an interdisciplinary and transnational approach to contemporary environmental challenges.