Around the fire 

What do you enjoy most about your work at Wilderness?

Being directly involved at the intersection of biodiversity conservation, education and uplifting community livelihoods and having the opportunity to conceptualise, bring to life and track and quantify the impact of such initiatives is one of my favourite aspects of my work. The Lion Monitoring x Wildlife Friendly Beef project is a great example, offering a practical approach to reducing human–lion conflict through real-time lion monitoring while rewarding farmers for conservation by purchasing beef from livestock they protect using non-lethal methods.

What is your favourite animal and why?

A honeybadger, they are relentless in their pursuit! They are brave as they come and have the guts to take on anything in their way. I especially resonate with this behaviour because I truly believe in being driven by self belief and assertiveness, and thriving on being versatile to take on new and different roles and tasks as they come. I believe that is what has gotten me so far in my career in conservation.

If you could choose a Wilderness camp to be stranded at, which one would it be?

Hard choice because I have been privileged to have been to almost all of our camps in Botswana and each really offers a unique experience. Even the wildlife behaves differently sometimes! But the ultimate choice would be Mombo for its game viewing and importantly birdlife offering – there is a lot to see here and most times intimately close. So, I would make best use of extended period here to witness and document the wildlife interactions – something I enjoy side by side with my work.

What inspired you to pursue a career in environmental impact and sustainability?

I think the inspiration came from how much I loved being outdoors, especially in natural spaces, initially in farmlands coming from a farming community away from the wildlife areas. This then morphed into an interest in wildlife conservation and a pursuit to contribute to landscapes where both humans and wildlife can co-exist. The pursuit to achieve and maintain some level of co-existence and a landscape where both wildlife and people can thrive requires constant thinking and evolution of ideas as no one thing ever offers a perfect or permanent solution to the challenge. This, therefore, is a life-long pursuit for any conservationist – one I have braced myself to take on for a lifetime.

What's the most unusual or memorable thing you've encountered while working in the field?

Perhaps not unusual given the Delta’s natural design, but certainly different from what I was accustomed to before working in the Okavango is how flat the Delta is and in turn how unpredictable its flow and flooding. Sometimes you literally get the water moving in opposing directions with a flow from one original source splitting and meeting again after circling an island. It’s quite fascinating to see and it's what shapes the flooded waterways in the beautiful patterns you see from a plane and what gives us the iconic and picturesque aerial views of the Delta.