MM (Miila) Kauppinen

I started my PhD with WEC in July 2021. My project is about human-baboon conflict and coexistence in South Africa - how social learning may assist in the management of such human-wildlife conflict and interface.

I finished my master's at Wageningen University in 2013, in Forest and Nature Conservation. Afterwards I worked for a while with a bushmeat hunting related project in central Africa, and since 2015 have been involved in various projects in South Africa, mostly working with NPOs. My work has been in environmental education and animal welfare, and now most recently I have been focusing on my PhD project.

I have a deep interest in human-nature connection and behaviors of humans in relation to the environment and wildlife. This lead me to my project which is embedded in a local, continuous, ever-evolving dilemma and a broader topic of how people may share living areas with "problem wildlife". I am especially looking at how a combination of social and ecological methods, and social learning, may be harnessed to ameliorate long-term management of such issues.