The first major change has been that our Paul applied last year for the post of Anglophone Chief Instructor for African Parks. Not surprisingly, he got the job and we are super excited for him, and so far he is lapping up the challenges. He’s now in a good position to influence adjustments to the delivery of training and mentoring that we’ve all been discussing and recommending at Park Manager level.
My training year started with Grumeti Fund in Tanzania. Working with Anti-Poaching Manager Glen I headed out there in January to deliver a 14-day Level 3 (Basic) tracking course for 10 students.
Ground conditions were tough; dry, heavily grazed grass with poacher tracks trampled over by cattle. The trackers reached phenomenal standards, Glen has some excellent guys. Hopefully we’ll be returning soon…
On the way home I stopped off in Kenya to visit old friends in Kora National Park. The refurbishment of this iconic park is where the legendary George Adamson and Tony Fitzjohn ran their lion programs made famous by the book and film ‘Born Free’. Progress is going well and I hope we’ll be further involved as the project develops…
Following on from my Force Radio podcast I received the opportunity to conduct a series of talks for Cunard onboard the Queen Mary 2 on her world tour as she steamed through the Far East toward Cape Town. I gave three talks and a chat session on our counter-poaching work including establishing the first Rapid Response Team in Borneo.
Looking forward to the rest of 2024, we now have two new trainers joining B5P who will be headed out to Malawi parks later this year along with myself. I’ll be headed to Brunei and the Jungle Warfare Division to talk tracking with the British Army in August and we’re further expanding on the use of media to get our important messages over and hopefully invite some donor funding.
There’s other exciting stuff in the pipeline, will update soon…
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