Today the world celebrates United Nations World Environment Day under the theme, Connecting People with Nature. This is a time to go back and reflect on what it means by being one with nature, it is a time to go out and breathe in the beauty of nature, enjoy it, appreciate it, take a moment to think of the world without that beauty and if this is something we want to live without. Cheetahs are at the brink of extinction with around 7100 individuals left in the world, with habitat loss and human persecution being the biggest threat to their decline. Because of their wide ranging nature and competition from larger carnivores within protected areas, they get driven into farmlands where face conflict with farmers. When cheetahs inevitably prey on livestock and this leads to confrontation that results in cheetah deaths by shooting, trapping or poisoning. Our aim at CCB is to facilitate coexistence between cheetahs and the farming communities in Botswana to battle the cheetah decline through a holistic and community based approach. This serves to bridge the knowledge gap about carnivores and their importance in a healthy balanced ecosystem, and puts emphasis on the importance of involving the farming communities in all conservation efforts to foster tolerance of carnivores. This approach calls all to join in and work together to eliminate the possible extinction of threatened species, including the cheetah, by creating a healthy ecosystem that will allow all to benefit. At the end of it, we should all remember that we cannot live without nature nor can nature live without us so we need to strike a balance and coexist for people and wildlife to thrive altogether. It is our responsibility. Happy World Environment Day!
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