After leaving school early due to circumstances at home and then trying to find his feet, Excellent Mbuso Mhangane, known to many at the Southern African Wildlife College as Mbuso, always felt he was capable of more. A true jack of all trades, he had tried his hand at various things from carpentry, windscreen fitting,...Read More
by Bruce McDonaldSouth Africa accounts for about half of the total black rhino population on the African continent and is also home to the world’s largest population of white rhinos, which continue to be threatened by poaching and the illegal wildlife trade. Whilst we await the verified figures from the Department of Forestry, Fisheries and...Read More
Dear friends of the College,And finally, 2022 draws to a close and what a short but long and intense year it’s been! Essentially 2022 has been a year of recovery on so many different levels. The outset of the year saw many of our staff returning to a five-day week after having to show resilience and...Read More
Diploma update: The diploma development team met to discuss the two beta test roll-outs and the lessons learned from them. A schedule for the final steps, mostly concerning external review and internal accreditation of modules , has been developed. A schedule for next year’s Training Advisory Committee (TAC) meetings and objectives will be sent out by...Read More
By Elna de Beer (Technical Associate) Returning to Mozambique and working with the Community Engagement Teams (CET) of Banhine National Park (BNP) and Zinave National Park (ZNP) for the second time this year from 14 to 25 November 2022, brought encouraging rewards. This process started in August 2022, followed by a follow up session in September...Read More
The Global Environment Facility (GEF) 6 Project has an overall goal – to strengthen institutions and targeted communities to improve decision-making and reduce the rate of illegal wildlife trade in South Africa. The third component of the project aims at strengthening community capacity to reduce the rate of illegal wildlife trade. This goal is attainable...Read More
During the 2022 Tusk Conservation Symposium in Kenya, a Collaboration Grant of USD 2000 was awarded to the Africa Foundation – Oceans Without Borders (OWB) Programme and the Southern African Wildlife College (SAWC). This enabled participation in a knowledge exchange linked to OWB’s Community Conservation (C&C) monitor programme on Benguerra Island. Dr Tessa Hempson and...Read More
Equipped with a vision of educating and empowering next generation of environmental protectors and leaders, the Community and Youth Development (CYD) department had a successful 2022 when it managed the implementation the Advanced Certificate Trans-Frontier Conservation Management (TFCA) which will make way for the three-year Diploma offering, the Natural Resource Management, Terrestrial, the conservation Bridging...Read More
Bruce McDonald and the SAWC Air-wing team The SAWC Air-wing has had a relatively busy two months over the October-November period. There were 150 conservation hours flown with most of our efforts focused on rhino de-horning operations within the Associated Private Nature Reserves (APNR) and other Private Nature Reserves. Rhino de-horning projects were conducted in the...Read More
By Johan Van Straaten – Dog Master The last quarter of the year has included a few highlights for the team but the most exciting news is that we can officially announce that the Skukuza satellite unit has finally opened, with more than half of our operational dogs being moved there. This will be a game...Read More
