MOUNT MOCO, Angola — Kerllen Costa was raised in Angola with a love of nature and the outdoors. He started his career by volunteering on an Angolan sea turtle conservation project, and later obtained a degree in environmental sciences from South Africa’s University of KwaZulu-Natal. Since 2015, he has worked with a conservation project run by the Kissama Foundation at Mount Moco, in Angola’s Huambo Highlands, whose grasslands and forests are home to an array of unique plants and animals. As Kissama’s project manager, Costa is incorporating what he calls a “more anthropological view of things” in his work. In an interview conducted at the project’s tree nursery at the foot of Mount Moco, Angola’s highest mountain, Costa told Mongabay that securing protected status for an area of high biodiversity value is useful, but the work of conservation doesn’t end there. He says protection of nature and landscapes can best be sustained by leaning on ancient relationships that local communities already have with their environment. This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity. Mongabay: One of your personal interests is in promoting what are known as “other effective conservation measures.” How can that approach apply to a place like Mount Moco? Kerllen Costa: I’m a firm believer that the majority of conservation statutes that exist did not — and still don’t — take into account certain sociocultural dynamics in whatever part of the world [you’re in]. They don’t take into account the fact that there are people who…This article was originally published on Mongabay
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