Question: If you did go to Zimbabwe what kind of work would you do to contribute to improve Zimbabwe’s agriculture and conservation in Zimbabwe?

Yvette Wilson answered on 22 Jun 2010:

There’s two main areas I would like to work in:
The first is in taxonomy, which is identifying and describing species. It may not sound important, but its HUGELY important as we can’t manage landscapes without knowing what is in them and how they interact.
The second main area is more in agriculture. I would like to identify/breed crop varieties that are suitable for the Zimbabwean environment, for example, those that are more drought tolerant and disease resistant. I would also study agricultural practices to try to improve them to decrease the degradation of the land and the use of pesticides and increase the output of farmers.
I’m not really sure which of these is more important though – and it would be difficult for me alone to do both!
(not to mention my third wish which is to help in the training of other Zimbabweans as the more minds focussed on these problems the better!)