On 11th June Graham and Ness Hemson welcomed the first addition to their family and the newest member of the EWCP team into the world, Edie Alice Hemson.

After two years of service in mountains of Dinsho and the offices of Addis Ababa, James Malcolm has returned to Redlands University in California. He will be sorely missed by the staff at EWCP who organised a spontaneous party on his final day, giving up their Sunday and their own money to prepare a feast, coffee ceremony and all male dance team! The evening was a wonderful celebration of James’ time at the helm of EWCP in Ethiopia and the affection the staff have for him was very clear. They presented him with several thoughtful presents that he will doubtless cherish.
Over the past two years James has endured considerable personal challenges as well as a very challenging time for EWCP. Despite this adversity James leaves EWCP and the staff enriched, enlightened and in a better position than when he started. We have a brand new Memorandum of Understanding with the federal and state governments (a journey that took two years of patient liaison) an enthusiastic and empowered team working in Dinsho and the mountains and wonderful opportunity to extend the activities of the EWCP into the second most important wolf area, Arsi.
James’ involvement with Ethiopia spans three decades and I felt privileged to spend the last month with him in Ethiopia. His enthusiasm for and knowledge of Bale, Oromia and Ethiopia is inspirational and infectious and his commitment cannot be questioned. While we bid him a fond farewell we expect to see him back in Bale before too long. He seems unable to stay away for too long!
Bon voyage and best wishes James,
Graham Hemson

Over the last 20 years, the Bale Mountains National Park (BMNP) has been used to graze increasingly high numbers of livestock that are suspected to have reduced rodent diversity and abundance. This reduction constitutes a threat to the persistence of the Ethiopian wolf population. Overgrazing also poses another ecological threat to the park: BMNP is the water source for five major rivers on which an estimated 12 million people depend, and it is feared that ground-trampling and vegetation removal by cattle has a detrimental effect on this hydrological system. Investigating the effects of livestock grazing on the functioning of this ecosystem has been identified as the leading research priority in the recently ratified BMNP management plan.

As part of her doctorate, Flavie Vial will establish critical links between vegetation condition, livestock grazing pressures and rodent assemblages through field investigations and through the construction of fenced-off areas – exclosures – in which grazing pressure can be finely and reliably manipulated. Flavie’s research is part of a new collaboration that will combine the conservation expertise available within the WildCRU, with the ecological modelling capabilities available within the Theoretical Ecology Group at the University of Glasgow. Flavie is jointly supervised by Dan Haydon (Glasgow), David Macdonals and Claudio Sillero (WildCRU) and working closely with the EWCP team in Bale.