Feature: MENTOR-Bat

Collaboration for Conservation

Colombia’s diverse landscape provides excellent habitat for bats.

Background photo: Emily Ronis USFWS

New MENTOR-Bat program kicks off in Colombia

By Annika Hipple

n an April day in Chinchiná, Colombia, a group of bat conservationists put their acting skills to the test. Pretending to be an audience of schoolchildren, their roleplay helped Indonesian bat researcher Ellena Yusti refine a short improvised “elevator speech” explaining her work to a younger audience. Since bat conservationists must be able to communicate with everyone from kids to government officials to the general public, the exercise was a valuable chance to practice her skills in front of supportive colleagues. This was one of many memorable experiences during the inaugural workshop for the exciting new MENTOR-Bat program, a partnership between Bat Conservation International (BCI) and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS).

Designed to promote long-term protection for bats and ecosystems by building capacity in key geographic regions, MENTOR-Bat brings together established and emerging bat conservationists from Colombia, Cameroon, and Indonesia in three cohorts, each consisting of one mentor and three fellows. Over 18 months, participants engage in virtual and in-person meetings, training opportunities, and workshops related to bat conservation and implementing bat conservation projects. The program also emphasizes One Health, focusing on protecting people and bats.

The first in-person MENTOR-Bat meeting took place in Colombia in April 2024. The cohorts are meeting this August, with another in-person meeting scheduled for September 2025. They will participate in online talks and discussion sessions between the in-person workshops and undertake a field-based team project.

“MENTOR-Bat is a good model for conservation because it focuses on partnerships, with continuous learning and building of networks between conservation and One Health practitioners,” says BCI MENTOR-Bat Program Coordinator Luz de Wit, Ph.D. “The model ensures that the fellows develop their technical and soft skills, like learning how to manage conflict and working in a transdisciplinary team.”

Colombia workshop unites global experts

The Colombia workshop included a global network of experts from BCI and USFWS, as well as mentors and fellows from Colombia and Indonesia. Unfortunately, the Cameroon cohort could not attend in person due to a last-minute visa issue. Still, they gathered together as a group in Yaoundé, Cameroon, where they met in person for the first time and focused on team-building activities like a night of bat netting and acoustic surveys.

Mentors and fellows come from various backgrounds and have experience in multiple fields. For example, Fellow Monique Agnès Mioni Ndame is a veterinarian at the Zoological Garden of Garoua in Cameroon. At the same time, Juliana Herrera is an environmental geologist in Colombia with extensive knowledge of karst and cave systems.

“This program gives me an opportunity to be a mentor not just for ecologists or for researchers in my area,” says Cameroon Mentor Patrick Jules Atagana. “We have a virologist and a veterinarian in our cohort, so this training is giving me the opportunity to assist a transdisciplinary team working together to save bats and improve human health.”

BCI and USFWS selected the three participating nations based on criteria that included the number of bat species present, how many are threatened, the level of in-country infrastructure available to implement field-based projects, and the potential to increase technical and research capacity for biodiversity conservation.

Photo: MGambaRios

Meet the Fellows

Two MENTOR-Bat Fellows share their aspirations for the program

Colombian Fellow Gabriela Peña Bello is interested in gaining new perspectives to complement her own experience as a biologist and learning how to measure conservation results to determine if specific initiatives are having a beneficial impact. “MENTOR-Bat is a holistic program and covers many parts of conservation and One Health, which is important because conservation is a complex challenge,” she says.

Peña Bello also hopes to gain new skills in handling the social components of conservation and learning different perspectives on how to approach similar issues affecting bats in three distinct geographic regions. “Getting to know other bat conservationists from around the world is an incredible opportunity to know their perspective and to get to know their culture,” she says. In addition to cultural exchange, she looks forward to sharing ideas and strategies so the three cohorts can help each other. Ellena Yusti, a fellow from Indonesia, investigates the ecological and socioeconomic impacts of rainforest transformation in Sumatra. She is excited about collaborating with other fellows, mentors, and staff from Bat Conservation International (BCI) and USFWS.

“I think our regions are facing the same threats, like habitat loss, such as bat roosting sites or foraging sites in the forest, mangroves and caves converted into oil palm plantations, large-scale aquaculture and the mining industry, for example,” she says. “It’s important to address these threats and identify possible solutions as a team.” She adds that expanding her personal network for future communication and collaboration will make it easier to address common problems and design effective conservation projects.

One Health approach defined

“Another criterion for selecting countries was whether local human-bat interactions pose a threat to bats and/or people,” explained de Wit. “An example is whether bats are frequently hunted for trade, or whether their roosts and habitats are disturbed through land use change, guano harvesting, or cave tourism.” In these cases, One Health initiatives led through the MENTOR-Bat team would involve working with local governments or communities to identify strategies for reducing threats to bats and potential risks to human well-being.

A particularly exciting aspect of MENTOR-Bat is its emphasis on One Health, which the World Health Organization and other international bodies define as “an integrated, unifying approach that aims to sustainably balance and optimize the health of people, animals, and ecosystems.”

people taking pictures and using binoculars observing wildlife in Colombia

MENTOR-Bat participants observe wildlife during their time in Colombia.

Photo: Emily Ronis USFWS

The MENTOR Model

MENTOR-Bat is the latest in a series of focused programs

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) launched its first MENTOR program in 2008 to address the issue of illegal bushmeat trading in East Africa. The program—MENTOR stands for Mentoring for Environmental Training in Outreach and Resource Conservation—promotes collaborative, transdisciplinary approaches to solving complex conservation problems with various roots. The original program was called MENTOR/BEAN (with BEAN standing for “Bushmeat-free Eastern Africa Network”). Through collaboration with governments, nongovernmental organizations, universities, and local communities, program participants gain new skills and contacts to help them address challenging conservation issues.

Since the first program in 2008, USFWS has supported eight additional MENTOR programs, mostly in Africa, focusing on issues such as forests and conservation of wildlife such as apes, pangolins, manatees, fish, and now bats with MENTOR-Bat. A tenth program, focusing on wildlife trafficking, is also planned.

“I’m excited about learning how to implement One Health for bat conservation because persecution is one of the main threats to bats in Cameroon,” Atagana says. “It’s important to raise awareness in communities to reduce hunting and persecution and ensure that people understand the importance of bats to our ecosystems, make sure they understand that they are not our enemies, but instead our partners and collaborators.”

As an important element of these efforts, Yusti is eager to further develop her science communication skills to motivate policymakers and local governments to address critical issues.

“This program will increase my capacity to implement the One Health approach and holistic conservation measures,” Yusti says. “Here in Indonesia, people are more focused on charismatic species like tigers, but the bats are important because they are facing habitat loss and hunting for bushmeat. That’s a big problem in Indonesia, and it’s not an easy problem to solve.” She hopes the MENTOR-Bat team can offer fresh ideas to address these problems.

“MENTOR-Bat is a good model for conservation because it focuses on partnerships, with continuous learning and building of networks between conservation and One Health practitioners. The model ensures that the fellows develop their technical and soft skills, like learning how to manage conflict and working in a transdisciplinary team.” —Luz de Wit

Continuing to convene for bat conservation

The cohorts are meeting this August, with another in-person meeting scheduled for September 2025. In-person and online discussions will focus on bat conservation, One Health, human dimensions of bat conservation, communications and outreach, adaptive management, and conservation leadership. Each cohort will also undertake a team project addressing a specific issue to be presented to the rest of their peers.

Atagana, one of the participants who was unable to travel to Colombia in April, looks forward to meeting the other cohorts in person. He is excited to learn from the other participants about their experiences addressing different issues and see if similar solutions can be implemented in Cameroon for other species.

MENTOR-Bat brings together established and emerging bat conservationists from Cameroon, Colombia, and Indonesia in three cohorts, each consisting of one mentor and three fellows.

“We are excited not just to meet them but to share our knowledge, to learn, to collaborate, and to develop a big project to work on bats,” he says. He also hopes that through the other cohorts, his Cameroonian group can expand its professional network to Indonesia, Colombia, other parts of Asia, South America, and beyond.

This global exchange of knowledge and networking excites de Wit, who is thrilled with the success of the inaugural event. “They are such a great team,” she says of the participants. “Their shared goals—to protect bats and ensure that bats and people can coexist sustainably—have brought them together. I am excited to see what projects they develop and what they do next for bat conservation.”

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