Hervé Fritz

Research & Expertise

I’m currently the Director of Research from CNRS, the Director of the IRL REHABS, and the acting director of the Sustainability Research Unit of Nelson Mandela University. I have been an Adjunct Professor at Nelson Mandela University since 2018 and have been a permanent staff member of the CNRS since 1998.  

My main research theme could be summarised as “Coupling behavioural and community ecology to understand the role of trophic relationships (including humans) in the functioning of conservation-orientated social-ecological systems”. This includes studies on predator-prey relationships, ecology of fear, as well as trophic cascades, herbivory, ecosystem services, and pastoral and hunting practices, with an increasing emphasis on combining citizen knowledge with standard protocols to monitor changes in species behaviour and distribution in anthropogenic landscapes. Most of my research projects are at the interface between theoretical and applied science, with a strong emphasis on biodiversity conservation, hence an increasing inclusion of social-ecological systems thinking and practice in my research. My field experience covers research and conservation projects in France, as well as Southern, Eastern and Western Africa (Zimbabwe, South Africa, Mozambique, Botswana, Kenya, Cote d’Ivoire, Burkina Faso).

 I was the co-founder of the Hwange Environmental Research Development project in Zimbabwe in 1999 and was appointed director of the long-term social-ecological research programme in Hwange (CNRS Hwange LTSER - Zone Atelier Hwange; www.za-hwange.cnrs.fr ) from 2011 to 2023. I have developed a strong collaboration network with several universities from France, the UK, Spain, Canada, China, Zimbabwe and South Africa. I participated in the creation of the Research Platform Production and Conservation in Partnership in Zimbabwe (www.rp-pcp.org), for which I acted as scientific coordinator for 10 years. I was appointed in 2019 as the director of the International Research Laboratory REHABS.