Dianne Tipping-Woods

This article is about the potential of combining people and tech in conservation (pgs 98-100).

In southern Africa, a confluence of rivers and elephant migration patterns unites five nations around a shared vision for conservation, tourism, and sustainable development
Rivers, streams, and wetlands gush, trickle, surge, soak, seep, and filter their way through the Kavango-Zambezi Transfrontier Conservation Area (KAZA), bringing life to Africa’s most ambitious conservation landscape. Like the people and wildlife of the region, the waterways here are unique, diverse, and interconnected. Th...

“The animals don’t care if I am a man or a woman; to them I am just a human being.”

This statement Khomotso Mokoena was lingering in the back of my mind as the lioness looked at us, before disappearing into a thicket. She’d been stalking a wildebeest when we surprised her on our morning walk from Lower Sabie. She’d run as we stood frozen behind our guides, savouring the unique and very human thrill of encountering a big cat on foot...

Many fires burned around the world in 2019–2020, all with different causes, scales, and impacts. But they had one thing in common: Climate change stoked their flames.
In 2019, huge fires in Alaska threatened ecologically significant habitats that are home to species such as caribou and salmon. This in turn threatened the food security, infrastructure, health, and cultural identity of people throughout the Arctic. Climate change contributed to these wildfires, which were fueled by increasing t...

Limpopo's Bruce Lawson initially decided to walk 150km to raise money for food parcels — and he hasn't stopped walking since

On April 28, Limpopo wilderness guide Bruce Lawson decided to walk 150km around a 400m track in his garden over three days, to raise money for food parcels. He hasn't stopped walking since. More than two weeks later, he's nearing the 1,000km mark, with over R400,000 raised. That's more than 30,000 meals for families in need...

As Anety shifts her baby from hip to hip—she wants to stand but the wound from her caesarean section still hurts a bit—she casually talks about confronting poachers and her lucky escapes from these criminals and wildlife like elephants and buffalos.
She didn’t quit when she was almost killed by poachers, or when a colleague was murdered, or when an elephant tried to crush and bury her in her tent, or even when she had her first child six years ago. The baby’s father died in 2014, leaving her ...

Eight loosely acquainted women swap Joburg and Cape Town for the Greater Kruger National Park, embarking on an epic journey of discovery about wilderness, self, and the relationship between the two.

“Why have you come here?” guide Brenden Pienaar asked as we gathered under a copse of Jackalberry trees on the banks for the Nhlaralumi River, our departure point for a fully immersive, back-to-basics hike through the wilds of the Greater Kruger National Park.
Our answers were as varied as we were; eight women from different backgrounds, cities and interests. We wanted quiet, we wanted...

At 3 am one October morning in 2018, a wooden canoe slid into the black waters of Lake Itezhi Tezhi, leaving the shore of Kafue National Park and heading toward the unprotected land on the lake’s eastern side. Darkness hid the two men in the hand-carved mokoro. Or so they thought.
“They were leaving the national park,” explains Patricia Mweetwa, a community ranger with Zambia’s Department of National Parks and Wildlife (DNPW). Her unit is tasked with keeping the waters and shores of the lake ...

The pretty pink flowers seem to be floating in the mist, each with two curious yellow dots poking out at the end of the stamens. As we get closer we see the flowers are mounted on stalks that pop out of rosettes of leaves. It has rained and the plants are submerged in water, growing out from the...

The sound of sizzling oil has always been the sound of salvation for Belina Maselana. The trainee chef at the Singita Community Culinary School is sautéeing spirals of spinach to be served with the bowl of umngqusho she’s prepared. A creamy, comforting mix of samp, beans, parmesan cheese and onion purée. The dish is part of the tapas menu at Singita Lebom bo Lodge, a modern take on a meal prepared in homes across South Africa and a favourite of Nelson Mandela...

An account of a girlfriend getaway in Skukuza that profiles the camp in an original way.

A discussion on wilderness, sex and sanity.

“Anthropomorphic? You better bloody believe it! Conservation is emotional stuff. It’s time to put hot red blood into our science!” The words pulse with the energy of a gathering lowveld storm, rumbling over the deck dotted with fire-finches and blue waxbills, towards the distant Mariepskop mountains.

Poet, Psychiatrist and Wilderness advocate Ian McCallum is deep in it now, blue eyes blazing with joyful passion. “Wilderness is all about sex and vita...

Forging a life of mutual benefit in Botswana’s Eastern Okavango Panhandle
The elephants move quietly through the gathering darkness, but Tumisi “Shorty” Tlale can hear them. “Listen,” he says, his head cocked to one side as he tries to get a fix on their position. “They’re coming.” A farmer in the eastern panhandle of Botswana’s Okavango Delta, Tlale’s ears are attuned to the elephants’ low rumbles as they move through the bush. If his sensitive ears have given him an initial advantage though...

The Sabi Sands Game Reserve has a reputation for delivering great leopard sightings. A new study by big-cat conservation and research NGO Panthera looks at the factors that make this reserve one of the world’s last true havens for these spotted cats. Pg 110.

"He was a hint of dappled movement in the thick riverine undergrowth. I felt the adrenaline pulse through my veins as I willed my eyes to penetrate the thick vegetation the large male leopard was navigating. We’d finally found him - the challenge was not to lose him to the shadows on the far bank..."

Could changing how we train rangers impact counter-poaching by making rangers more resilient to the pressures they face? A new ranger training curriculum being piloted in South Africa thinks it could…
“Being in nature humbles and rewards us on a daily basis, but it also demands that we give a lot,” says ranger Billy Moumakoe. He’s on a short break, somewhere along the fenceline of Pilanesberg National Park in South Africa’s North West Province. Despite the cold, there is nowhere he would rath...