Legends in the Making | Lowveld Living Magazine

Photos: Christiaan Munoz Salas

The immense task of protecting wild animals, habitats and ecosystems is passing into the hands of a new generation of conservationists. Dianne Tipping-Woods met two young Lowvelders who are making their voices heard.

The Explorer

Wayne Te Brake

Wayne Te Brake has spent the last 3 months in Chile presenting Wild Expectations, a wildlife documentary series the making of which saw him floating among giant icebergs, exploring the Atacama Desert and his first live on foot sighting of wild puma.

Te Brake’s easy-going personality makes him a natural in front of the camera where he is very much at home explaining the behaviour of the exotic animals that he and the rest of his team encounter. “I haven’t watched much TV in the past and don’t even own one, which means I just get into ‘guide’ mode when we’re filming,” he laughs.

Although born and raised in Johannesburg, 30 year old Te Brake left the city as soon as he could and has been based in the Lowveld for nearly a decade. With a BTech degree in Nature Conservation, Te Brake is also a FGASA Level 3 Trails Guide with track and sign qualifications, who describes himself as “so addicted to back-pack trails in the Kruger National Park that I will struggle to ever leave the industry.”

While Te Brake presents documentaries and travels all over the globe for work, part of him is always back home in the Lowveld. “I miss walking along the Phugwane River at dawn with a backpack weighing me down, a rehabilitated campsite behind me and not another soul for miles.”

Info: www.facebook.com/WEXPECTATIONS

The Eco warrior

Sboniso Phakathi

Sboniso Phakathi’s brightly painted mini-bus is a familiar sight in the Hoedspruit community and surrounding villages. Known affectionately as Spoon, this environmental activist and educator has a talent for engaging the attention of children and adults alike with the result that he has become the de facto ambassador for a range of environmental issues in the Lowveld and beyond.

Born in rural Kwazulu- Natal in 1988, Spoon joined Protrack, a Hoedspruit wildlife conservation company, at the age of 20. Initially based in their anti-poaching unit, he spent a year at the frontline of the fight against rhino poaching, before joining their public relations team and continuing the fight in the public arena.

Increasingly aware of the need to reach as many people as possible to educate them about the plight of rhino, he joined Paul Jennings on a “Rights for Rhinos” walk that took them the length of South Africa, from Musina to Cape Point, over a distance of 1700 kilometres. En route they visited 25 schools and spoke to 16 000 children about the cause.

The walk and the children he met en route inspired Phakathi to launch the Green Kidz Initiative (GKI), a Hoedspruit-based Not For Profit organisation that provides environmental education to under-resourced schools. GKI also forms part of Rhino Revolution, a community-based initiative working to halt rhino killings in the area.

Info: www.facebook.com/GreenKidzInitiative

Source: Lowveld Living Magazine

Lowveld Living is a creative and vibrantly upbeat magazine that focuses on the people and lifestyles of the Lowveld. From the panoramic gateway of the escarpment, through Mpumalanga’s sub-tropical heartland, to the beaches of cosmopolitan Maputo and the misty hideouts of Swaziland’s mountain kingdom, the area is renowned for its natural beauty – but what really makes the Lowveld tick is its people. Lowveld Living explores how these innovative (and often eccentric) adventurers, artists and entrepreneurs are creating a spirited, stylish society in an area renowned for its natural beauty.

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