In this radio episode, we speak to Hana Raza, a wildlife conservationist from Iraqi Kurdistan and founder of the newly-formed NGO Leopards Beyond Borders. While working with Nature Iraq, Raza and her team found evidence of the
Persian leopard
, which was presumed locally extinct in Iraqi Kurdistan. Leopards Beyond Borders aims to protect this important species and, more widely, to establish
protected areas
for wildlife in Iraqi Kurdistan. In this conversation, Hana discusses the importance of camera trap images for influencing policymakers and international
conservation
communities, and the risks of doing wildlife conservation work in places where
war
and border conflicts have long-term and ongoing impacts.
Interviewers: Michelle Westerlaken and Trishant Simlai
Producer: Harry Murdoch
Listen on Apple and Spotify.
This radio episode was produced by the Smart Forests project funded by the European Research Council. Smart Forests is led by Professor Jennifer Gabrys and is based in the Department of Sociology at the University of Cambridge.
Header image: Camera trap footage of the Persian Leopard. Image source: Nature Iraq, 2016 [camera trap image]. Retrieved 8 April 2022, from: https://osme.org/2016/01/funding-conservation-projects-a-voice-for-biodiversity-in-iraq/
Smart Forests Atlas materials are free to use for non-commercial purposes (with attribution) under a
CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 license.
To cite this radio episode:
Raza, Hana, Michelle Westerlaken, and Trishant Simlai, "Hana Raza: Camera Traps and Persian Leopards in Iraqi Kurdistan", Smart Forests Atlas (2023), https://atlas.smartforests.net/en/radio/hana-raza. DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.10686901.