ifaw and Winchester caw partnership 2019 essay winner

We’re proud to partner with the University of Winchester’s Centre for Animal Welfare (CAW). The Centre offers fantastic undergraduate courses and Masters in Animal Welfare, Science, Ethics and Law, and aims to create a new generation of passionate animal welfare experts.

As part of our partnership, IFAW and the University of Winchester’s CAW hold an annual essay competition, which asks students to submit a piece of writing that discusses innovative solutions to conservation issues and challenges conventional ways of thinking. Once again, this year’s participants did not disappoint.

It’s never easy to select a winner, but we’re pleased to announce Francesca Bandoli as the winner of the 2019 essay competition. Francesca’s insightful essay, “Surviving in the Anthropocene”, highlights “certain fundamental changes of animal behavioural and cognitive characteristics in response to human activity", explained Prof. Andrew Knight, CAW Director and Programme Leader for the MSc. "It demonstrates how understanding of such animal characteristics can be used in conservation efforts. It is an excellent essay on a topic which is both fascinating and important."

IFAW’s UK Director, James Sawyer, added: “It’s great to be providing this award to a student who has such a healthy interest in the topic. The nexus between animal welfare and conservation is a critical one, and further understanding of how the disciplines can be of benefit to each other is needed. As population sizes diminish in the wild, the wellbeing of the individual animal becomes ever more important.”

We would like to congratulate Francesca on producing such an excellent and thought-provoking essay. You can read her winning entry here: Surviving in the Anthropocene: the study of animal cognitive abilities as a conservation tool