Gasto Lyakurwa

Gasto Lyakurwa is a second-year Ph.D. student in the Department of Recreation, Park, and Tourism Management working with Dr. Edwin Sabuhoro. Before joining Penn State, Gasto got interested in human-wildlife interactions while working on various wildlife and tourism management duties in Tanzania National Parks and Game Reserves. He started his career in wildlife conservation as a game officer at Selous Game Reserve in 2007. He later joined Serengeti National Park as Park Warden, coordinating anti-poaching patrols and supervising community outreach and tourism activities. In 2010, Gasto joined the College of African Wildlife Management, Mweka (CAWM) found in Tanzania to train Park rangers on the evidence-based patrols required to inform park management decisions in the protected areas across Africa. During his work at Mweka, Gasto participated in various conservation projects including a program that involved the re-introduction of ibexMountain gazelles, and ostriches in Sharaan Nature Reserve in Saudi Arabia. He is currently researching human-wildlife conflict and coexistence. His future focus is to develop a model that integrates biodiversity conservation activities with community livelihood needs to enable human-wildlife coexistence in Tanzania.