Louise de Waal
Louise has a PhD in environmental management and a long history of teaching and research in an academic environment. She has travelled extensively throughout eastern and southern Africa and has 15+ years' experience working in the sustainable tourism industry and in Africa specifically, among others as the founder/MD of Baobab Travel, an UK-based tour operator of tailor-made African holiday packages and one of the first tour operators in the UK to be certified by Fair Trade Tourism. Her passion for sustainability has never faded and she now works as an independent sustainable tourism consultant with specific interest in wildlife and conservation. She is the driving force behind the #HandsOffOurWildlife campaign, which aims to create greater awareness around issues of unethical and even cruel captive wildlife interactions by educating the public and the tourism industry at large.
Lion farms: A public health risk to humans and animals
By Louise de Waal28-09-2020 10:17
A joint scientific study by Blood Lions and World Animal Protection highlights how lion farms in South Africa pose a potential health risk to thousands of local and international tourists, as well as the work force and respective communities.
South Africa breeds lions and tigers for traditional medicine
In support of World Tiger Day on 29 July, Blood Lions puts the focus on the international trade in tiger body parts and makes the link to South Africa's legal lion bone trade, in their latest campaign movement.
Conservation: Elephants taken out of the room
No new elephants should be placed in captivity and elephants currently in captivity should be rewilded, was the overwhelming conclusion of the Captive Elephant Indaba held in Hermanus last Friday.
Conservation: More horror scenes at SA lion farm
Things are getting worse.
South Africa selling tiger and lion hunts to Chinese nouveau riche
Tigers, leopards, lions, elephants and rhinos were among the many species of wild animals on offer by South African hunting outfitters at the first-ever Chinese hunting show in Shanghai last weekend.
Botswana ignores science and reopens hunting in order to gain votes
There's a political motivation behind this decision.
More confusion over the fate of Botswana's elephants
President Mokgweetsi Masisi of Botswana categorically denies that his government would ever cull elephants, contradicting the Parliamentary Report proposing culling.
Animal cruelty charges laid against lion farmer
Shocking.
Canned lion hunting campaign muzzled at World Travel Market
What happened exactly?
Shock reversal by DEA of Parliamentary Resolution on captive lion breeding 
This happened at a briefing meeting of the Portfolio Committee of Environmental Affairs (PCEA) on the implementation of the Committee's Report in respect of CLB held on 12th March.
Botswana elephants caught in the middle of a scramble for votes
The heated media debate that followed has turned into a political feud.
Botswana proposes hunting and trade as elephant population declines
The results of the recent and most extensive elephant population survey of Botswana estimates the country's population at 126,000 elephants, a further decline from 131,600 reported in 2014.
Confusion over Botswana's elephant population
Botswana's parliament recently passed a motion considering lifting the ban on elephant trophy hunting, citing an increase in both the elephant population and human-elephant conflict (HEC) as their motives.
Do test tube lions help conserve wild lions?
Lion experts dispute the conservation value of test tube lions questioning whether this merely supports lion breeders' claims that they contribute to the conservation of lions.
Botswana's elephant poaching crisis under scrutiny
Reports of elephant poaching in Botswana are under the spotlight with various claims in national and international media that the current adverse situation is driven by anti-poaching budget cuts, disarming of anti-poaching units, poachers being spoilt for choice with wildlife finding a safe-haven in the country, and even the trophy hunting ban.
A nail in the coffin of the captive lion breeding industry?
There was an overwhelming consensus for the need to bring an end to the controversial captive lion breeding industry in South Africa at a two-day Parliamentary Colloquium of the Portfolio Committee of Environmental Affairs.
Skye is the limit – the Kruger lion hunt saga continues
Outrage, secrecy, abomination, controversy, suspicion, and cat and mouse game, are some of the verbalisations around the events linked to the lion hunt in the Umbabat Private Nature Reserve bordering Kruger National Park (KNP), of what is believed to be Skye, leader of the Western pride.
Conservation: Elephant poaching on the increase in Botswana
Last week, the carcass of a 40-year old elephant bull was found in Ngamiland, northern Botswana, partly covered with still green Mopane bushes and half of its skull hacked away by poachers to remove its tusks. The bull was killed during full moon two days earlier.