The Team

Johan grew up in Pretoria and even though he spent most of his school and university years in the city, he fondly remembers many a holiday to the family farm in Natal.  This sparked his love for nature, wilderness and wide open spaces.  Johan worked in his early career as a legal assistant, director of a specialist travel service provider, and later as a business development manager for a global retail travel group.  Throughout his career in business and the corporate sector he always nurtured his love for nature and wildlife by means of regular visits to many of the wilderness areas, parks and game reserves around South Africa.  In 2005, Johan pursued his passion for South Africa and established a unique volunteer tourism organisation which provides manpower and funding for conservation efforts in the region.

As a Founder of this organisation he realized the need for an effective platform whereby stakeholders in conservation can engage with the international scientific community and first world travellers to further conservation and research aims in local areas of ecological importance.  WEI was birthed in 2008 to foster such collaboration and resulted in many applied research projects between game reserves, conservation managers, university students, academic researchers, land owners and reserve managers.

Ian comes from a town not too far from Johannesburg.  As a child he was introduced to all the wonders of the natural world and fell in love with the African bush, where after he took every opportunity to spend time in our game reserves and parks.  After school Ian could not immediately pursue his dream of living in the bush but waited for the right opportunity in conservation.  Ian became a field guide at the age of 21 and ever since the bush has become his home.  He started his guiding career in a private game reserve, where after he moved to WEI where he is the Camp Manager at the Predators camp in Greater Kruger National Park.  Ian pursues every opportunity to learn something new about conservation ecology and enjoys hobbies such as rifle practise, fishing and hiking.

Dr. Teren’s role as Research and Training Manager of WEI is to ensure the scientific research at our multiple project sites is of the highest quality and to communicate with reserve managers to implement programmes which support the reserve’s immediate and long-term needs.  She is also responsible for designing the academic content for educational programmes and supervising dissertations and post graduate research.  Dr. Teren did her PhD on elephant impact on biodiversity at Wits University in Johannesburg and remains an honorary research associate at this institute.  Her main research interests are savanna dynamics and disturbance, remote sensing, biodiversity conservation, and fynbos restoration.  In her spare time, she enjoys hiking, playing with her dogs on the beach, and enjoying the cape wine lands. 

Eugene grew up exploring the countryside of Johannesburg and going on expedition trips into the South African wilds with his parents during holidays which set the scene for a career in conservation.  After leaving school, Eugene studied Nature Conservation and began a career as Field Guide in the world renowned Kruger National Park.  After achieving FGASA Level 3 with Specialist Knowledge Skills in Advanced Rifle Handling and Dangerous Animals he started training and assessing field guides.  Eugene left the field guiding industry in 2010 to move to Cape Town with his wife and 2 sons and took up a position in Environmental Impact studies.  Missing the excitement of the bush and his passion for sharing his knowledge on African wildlife, birds and ecology, Eugene returned to the conservation research field as Operation Unit Manager for WEI.  Eugene has supervised numerous field guides, managed several game lodges and lead scientific expeditions over that past 15 years.  Between his travels, Eugene spends time with his family (2 sons) by exploring the Western Cape coastline and photographing the spectacular fauna and flora it has to offer.  

TBC

Pieter has always had a passion and love for nature and from a young age he wanted to follow a career in the wildlife industry.  After school he obtained a Nature Conservation, Field Guide, Game Lodge and Reserve Management qualification.  During his studies he gained extensive practical experience in game lodge management, working in a big game environment and professional field guiding.  Pieter recently joined WEI at our camp in the Greater Kruger National Park where he lives out his passion to work in the wildlife industry and share his love for conservation with people from around the globe.  He is having a lot of fun while learning more about conservation ecology every day.