At the time of our call, Nambiti Private Game Reserve conservationist Leanne Deetlefs had one eye on the interview and another on the clock. A vet was due shortly to check on a cheetah. Multitasking is fairly standard for Leanne. A typical day might involve tracking African wild dogs at first light, checking a cheetah […]
Growing up at Cape Point gives you a different relationship with the outdoors. For Steve Mecinski, better known online as The Flying Dutchman, nature wasn’t a place he visited. It was home. He was born and raised inside what is now the Cape of Good Hope section of Table Mountain National Park, where his father […]
Roberto Serrini has a simple rule when arriving somewhere unfamiliar. “Grab a beer and talk to a local,” he says. “The more perspective you get,” he says, “the easier it is to be happy on earth.” He doesn’t believe in elaborate itineraries, spreadsheets, or endless restaurant lists saved on your phone before boarding the flight. […]
Growing up, Toast Coetzer spent most weekends on his family’s farm in Cradock, Eastern Cape. His parents would pack a picnic, drive to a far corner of the farm, and spend the day walking with little plan. They’d stop to turn over rocks, look at tracks, and identify birds. “You don’t realise it at the […]
Chrisjan Visser is on the road when we speak, driving back to Hoedspruit. He spent six years there, first as a field ranger, later as a dog handler, before moving on, as many in conservation do. “I’m just going back to see some old friends,” he says. Hoedspruit is where his career took shape. He […]
“You’re in the forest for a minimum of seven days at a time,” says Yoann Galeran. “Sleeping out there. Moving constantly.” Galeran has been working deep in the Congo Basin, in Dzanga-Sangha Special Reserve, since 2018. He started as a ranger trainer, supporting law enforcement operations through a specialist conservation organisation. Today, he serves as […]
At twelve years old, sitting in the back seat of a game viewer in northern Kruger, John Kinghorn didn’t know he was starting something that would shape the rest of his life. The drive had been quiet. Somewhere near Shingwedzi, a spurfowl flushed from the side of the road. “I didn’t quite know what it […]
At 22 years old, Mark Heystek already speaks about the land like someone who has walked it for a lifetime. He’s currently based at Brandwacht Game Reserve, home to Garden Route Safari Camp, where he works full-time as a field guide and also lives on the reserve. “It’s my workplace and my place of residence,” […]
Callum Perry is currently based in Amersham, England, but part of him still belongs to the wild landscapes of Southern and East Africa. He first arrived in South Africa at 18 on a volunteer placement just outside Pretoria. What was meant to be a short stint quickly turned into something bigger. He fell in love […]
Before he was a freshwater scientist in the United Kingdom, Tapiwa Zimunya was a boy roaming mountains. “I’d say my love for nature stems from the environment I grew up in,” he says. Forests, rivers, and rolling peaks surrounded his grandfather’s homestead in the eastern highlands of Zimbabwe. “There wasn’t much technology back then. These […]
