Dianne Tipping-Woods

“All I know is that I find bushcraft fascinating. Something happens when you hold clay you have dug from the earth or leather that you’ve tanned, that your body recognizes from thousands of years ago,” said Julie Bryden. She unpacked a bundle of sheep hide, thread, and some hand-carved hardwood needles and passed them around.
Julie Bryden and some of of her wild-tanned leather. Images by Kelly-Mae Wilkinson.
I was celebrating my 40th birthday with a small group of friends on an unsupported, b...

Ovahimba herder Tjimbari Kamendu anxiously awaits news of a pride of lions sighted close to his kraal –or livestock pen— in the village of Omukutu, inside the Anabeb Conservancy in northeast Namibia. It's a wild landscape grazed for centuries by livestock guided by local herders. Here, there are no fences to separate people and wildlife. A nearby seasonal waterway sustains cattle, goats, and donkeys alongside elephants, oryx, and zebras.

The sounds of squabbling baboons and squawking guinea fowl greet Tjavarekua Tjijahura as she rises to prepare breakfast and break camp. She is wearing the traditional clothes of Ovaherero women—petticoats, a voluminous dress with vibrant patterns, and a hornlike headscarf that pays homage to part of her identity: The Ovaherero people are historically cattle breeders, and raising livestock is a common way of life.
While the campsite is far from Tjijahura’s village, she says she feels an affini...

For 21 days each month, rhino ranger Erlyn Tauros's home is a canvas tent in the sun-beaten wilds of northwestern Namibia. She walks up to 19 miles daily and more than 300 miles per cycle across some of Africa's harshest terrain. With about five days between each trip into the field, she sometimes feels like she spends more time in the comp...

The night before we met, an elephant herd passed through Rebecca Adams’ small village in the heart of northwest Namibia's arid Huab River Valley. "They pushed over a fence to raid a small garden. I thought, elephants again. And I decided I would stay in bed and let others chase them away,” she said

I’m with Rebecca tracking these same elephants, having followed their footprints through the village of De Riet to further along the Huab River bed. It's a vast semi-desert landscape ranging from s...

Thanks to Skukuza Airport you can now breeze into the Kruger National Park for a weekend getaway. Here’s what to pack for luggage that is light enough so you don’t even have to check it in. By Dianne Tipping-Woods
There was a time when a trip to the Kruger National Park meant packing the car in the pre-dawn light with cooler boxes of groceries, packs of padkos and a pile of kids. Now though, with the convenience of affordable flights straight into Skukuza and the option of a transfer, car hir...

From the minute they're born, we spend so much of our time and resources keeping our children safe that travelling with them into the wilderness may seem counterintuitive.
Is taking them on safari responsible? What risks will they face? Do I need to worry about encounters with wild animals? Snakes? Illness? Safe transport?
Dangers always lurk at the edge of our comfort zones. But when considering a safari holiday with your little ones, chances are, you're worrying about the wrong things.
As W...

Spending 10 days in Kruger in a campervan offered Dianne Tipping-Woods a new take on a classic South African family holiday.

Written by Dianne Tipping-Woods
On a challenging multi-day hike through Makuya Nature Reserve in northern Limpopo, Dianne Tipping-Woods and seven other women rediscover their wild natures.
The more subtle you are, the more you’re going to fit into this landscape.’ Did naked in the Luvuvhu River count as subtle? I wasn’t sure, but Lowveld Trails Company guide Wayne te Brake, wasn’t around to ask. He’d given our group of eight loosely acquainted women this piece of advice as we set off on a pri...

In their reciprocal relationships with nature, women who are custodians of wild knowledge are modelling a different way of being in the world; one based on respect, humility and the wisdom of our human ancestors. Dianne tipping-woods meets three of them.

Guide Thabelo Sekome was unruffled by my sensory vertigo.He's taken enough people up to the top of Mariepskop to know they need a few moments to gush, exclaim or stand in awe of the vistas, the fynbos, the aloes or the proteas,ʻalthough I first fell in love with the trees in the mistbelt forest lower down the mountain; the Outeniqua yellowwoods (Afrocarpus falcatus), the Transvaal oak(Brachylaena rotundata), and the cabbage trees (Cussonia spicata)ʼ, he said. Millions of tourists gaze at Mariepskop from the scenic vantage points of Mpumalangaʼs Panorama Route, or the Lowveld towns of Hoedsprui

Rose Tshuma is fishing from the eastern bank of the Zambezi River, just in front of the Sidinda Fishing Camp in Zimbabwe, where she works as a housekeeper. “Look across at that crocodile. We’re all hungry,” she says as her eyes follow the stealthy hunter patrolling the opposite shore. The 52-year-old has a wry sense of humour and a keen awareness of the realities of rural life in this part of Zimbabwe. She knows from experience that hunger is no joke.
About eighty kilometres upstream, the mig...

Brenda Brady’s red hoodie provides a splash of color against Montana’s fall landscape as she bends down to see how the forage is faring in a recently reseeded cattle pasture. Behind her stands a 4x4 Chevy truck, which has replaced the horses her great-grandparents rode to survey these lands. The tract on which she stands used to be cropland, but now she’s in the business of growing grass.
On pastures like this, “the goal is to not have bare ground, but to have litter, or what we call the debr...

On the mudflats close to the town of Xai-Xai, Mozambique, where Africa’s mighty Limpopo River meets the Indian Ocean, 93-year-old Salimina João Mahiele joins about 100 women—mainly subsistence farmers from the nearby Mahielene and Zongoene Sede communities—to plant mangroves. They gather around Agostinho Nhanzimo, who helps run the local mangrove nursery established for this restoration project, as he explains how to space the young plants he has cultivated and how deep the holes should be.
A...

WWF’s Climate Crowd works with partners in more than 30 countries to collect data on how communities are affected by changes in weather and climate—and how they are coping with these changes. The data is analyzed and presented back to the communities, who then work alongside WWF and partners to develop and implement on-the-ground solutions. With their consent, WWF also shares the data on an online platform for use by researchers, educators, and conservation and development practitioners. To d...