What the students have to say: FGASA Level 1 course in Zimbabwe

EcoTraining in collaboration with Nakavango Conservation programme runs FGASA Level 1 courses from the Stanley and Livingstone reserve in Zimbabwe twice a year. This venue proofs to offer amazing learning opportunities and beautiful sightings. The current course started on 17 August, and are just about halfway through and with Mark Gunn as an instructor, you can only have an amazing time. One of the students shares her experience on the course thus far:

Ruth Westrick, Switzerland

"I just want to send you a quick note to let you know how much fun I have got doing the FGASA level 1 course at Nakavango. It is intense and I am thoroughly enjoying every aspect of it. We've had some awesome sightings where we could observe animals for a very long time, whilst learning a lot of interesting facts about everything that the bush is offering. Mark, our instructor has got an impressive knowledge and I like his holistic approach. I am sad to say that we are over half way already and will continue to enjoy my great time here.

Our short trip into Chobe was awesome as well. You are running a great programme and I am so glad that I enrolled for it."

For more information on the FGASA Level 1 course in Zimbabwe, contact our enquiries department at enquiries@ecotraining.co.za or call us +27 (0)13 752 2532

Do a course that suits you best!

Mike Kirby has started off as a Professional Field Guide student earlier this year. Little did he know that he would end up working as a back-up guide at our camps during his Lodge placement programme. Mike shares some great insider tips to those who are not too sure about what course to book!

"Doing an EcoTraining short course, a 55 day FGASA Field Guide Level 1 course or even a one year Professional Field Guide course is, in my opinion, the best experience Southern Africa has to offer.

It caters for a complete African novice to guides who want to further their knowledge. EcoTraining has a course catered for you!

During my FGASA Level 1 training, you got to understand how the environment works around you, from mammals to arthropods to trees.  Your knowledge and general understanding of nature in Southern Africa and any other place will grow tremendously.

I would also highly recommend the 7 or 14 day Tracking course, held in one of the four wilderness camps in South Africa and Botswana.  I was astounded at how much this course taught me and how much I can apply the knowledge and read the ‘stories in the sand’.

If you only have a month to spare, then 28 day Trails Guide course is on the top of my list.  You will be ttaying in the remote wilderness camps of either Makuleke, Kruger National Park or Mashatu, Botswana. The art of guiding on foot is learnt, as well as accessing places that no vehicle or tourist has even seen.

All of the courses can be done without pursuing a career in guiding. You can look at it as an educational holiday in some of the best areas Africa has to offer.

Personal highlights during the One year PFG course was: 

•           The remoteness of all the camps
•          Walking with elephant and lion
•          Opening my eyes to the little things that are quite often overlooked

The more you know, the more you appreciate nature and are breath-taken by what is going on around you in any environment."

Blog written by Mike Kirby

SA’s leading Guide Training company acquires influential FGASA CEO

Grant Hine

EcoTraining, the oldest and most established of the safari guide and wildlife training institutions endorsed by FGASA, is thrilled to announce the appointment of their new General Manager, Grant Hine. Grant is the former CEO of The Field Guide Association of southern Africa so this amalgamation of experience and skill from both parties should prove to be a noteworthy boost to the safari circuit.

The appointment comes at a time when EcoTraining has significant intentions to reach new places and new heights. “We are building a dream team to bolster EcoTraining into a position of having an impact on the world’s natural places,” says Anton Lategan, director and owner of EcoTraining. “We aim to win over the hearts and minds of people all over the globe and encourage them to love and care for their environment. Our life-changing wilderness experiences on all of our courses connect participants to the earth, reawakening instinctive senses.”

EcoTraining’s mission is two-fold: to produce highly qualified local field guides for the ecotourism industry, and to educate travellers from all walks of life about wildlife and ecosystems through a unique learning safari. What better way to achieve the aforementioned mission than under the auspices of Grant Hine, the guru in Field Guide Training in South Africa. Grant worked as a field guide and lodge manager for 12 years at various prominent safari lodges including MalaMala, SabiSabi and at lodges in the Lapalala wilderness area. His knowledge and experience with the etiquette of guiding guests into the bush to reveal fascinating facts about wildlife to them, ensured the move to become FGASA’s CEO was seamless.  Over the past 14 years, Grant has been instrumental in building up FGASA to where it is today and developing the existing guiding qualifications.

Trainers have challenging jobs as they host, teach, care for, understand, empathise and lead learners for long periods at a time. What they teach has a direct effect on how future safari guides behave, which in turn has a direct effect on international and local safari guests’ experiences and impressions of that particular lodge, game reserve, country and continent. Guides influence the hearts and minds of the well-travelled world. The responsibility of our trainers is significant as they are the messengers to a global audience.

After 22 years of guide training excellence delivered in the Kruger Park, Botswana, Zimbabwe, Kenya and further afield, the inclusion of Grant to the EcoTraining team will further empower EcoTraining to deliver the best guide training and the most powerful wilderness experiences to all who seek them.

Hard Graft

The bush is the greatest classroom there is.  Yes, theoretical knowledge is important, and trust me, there is a bucket-load on a FGASA Field Guide Level 1 course, but there is no substitute for time spent in the field.  In addition to EcoTraining's twice daily activities in game rich areas, the students are expected to get their hands dirty and help out with some reserve maintenance.  If it wasn’t for reserves and conservancies, we would not have the opportunity to offer these courses and perhaps tourists would not even have a chance to see these areas, such is man’s habit of developing land at all costs.  Despite there being a module dedicated to conservation management, what better way to give something back than by helping to keep the bush looking as pristine as possible.

Getting ready to blow off some steam

As an added bonus, the students get the chance to blow off a bit of steam and frustration after weeks of hard learning.  Where possible we try to clear over-hanging branches, fix erosion channels in roads and place bolsters and mitre drains, which are designed to funnel water off the road and reduce weathering effects.  There is nothing like a bit of hard labour to clear the cobwebs of mental over stimulation and without exception, students throw themselves into exercises like this with great gusto!   There is something very primal about welding a panga and both men and women attack the cause with equal enthusiasm!

Despite the fun and games, the students also learn about the perils of poor management.  Many of the reserves are old cattle farm, with soil that has been pillaged of nutrients by hundreds of head of hungry cattle.  The grass is destroyed, removing competition for the wooded plants, and thus dense thickets of pioneer species inhabitat large areas of the land.  Pioneers are designed to rehabilitate the soil by adding nutrients and sheltering the soil from weathering, but it does this at the detriment of species diversity.  Sometimes these thickets can become so thick that animals simply cannot penetrate them and the carrying capacity of the area (especially of grazing animals) is significantly reduced.  This is one of many challenges that face many private reserves in South Africa and they need all the help they can get.

Let the bush clearing begin

Hard at work

Something as simple as clearing roads of overhanging branches can make a huge difference to a guest experience; and since EcoTraining students are training as guides, it is imperative to understand that guest satisfaction is massively important.  Unfortunately, we live in a capitalist world whereby the only way to protect most wilderness areas, is to make them a viable commercial operation and make money.  Like it or not, no guests means no income for the reserve and soon there will be no reserve.  If guests are constantly bobbing and weaving more than a young Mohamed Ali, they will not return!  Simple little touches such as a comfortable ride without the perils of losing an eye to rogue thorn go a long way!

Blog post and photos by Ben Coley

The final hurdle

What does it mean to be a qualified field guide?  People come from all walks of like to attend this course and to enrich their understanding and personal experience of the bush.  I personally have trained people from probably 20 different nations and from age 18 right through to 70!  This is perhaps the greatest gift the bush has to offer: it doesn’t matter what your knowledge levels is, where you are from or how old you are, the bush has something for you.  Whether that be a holistic connection to your ancestors or something as simple as escapism shouldn’t matter.  The bush is the bush and how we interpret it is our own private experience.

The students on the latest FGASA level 1 course came from far and wild.  South Africans, Germans, Belgians, Portugese and even Sri Lankans came together to share their thirst for knowledge and passion for the bush.  The programme was as intense as ever and come the last 2 weeks of tests and the final assessment, stress levels were rising!  I’m not going to lie to any prospective student on such a course, it’s not easy.  It would be impossible for me to explain the sheer amount of knowledge that is expected of you in a relatively short space of time, but the bush gives back what you put in, and the more you learn, the more you begin to appreciate the myriad of subtle intricacies that often go overlooked on a day by day basis.

 The latest group of students worked and played hard.  There is no better classroom than the bush itself and twice daily activities certainly gave them great exposure to their new world.  The bush was being extremely kind this month and lions were seen regularly, 4 leopards, hyaena pups and even 2 aardvark sightings were just some of the highlights laid on for us by Mother Nature!  The students rewarded her generosity but knuckling down when the time came and we are delighted to report that they achieved a 100% pass mark in the FGASA theory exam!  All that remained was one final practical assessment:  a chance to show their assessor that they were able to take all of this new-found knowledge and package into a 3 hour drive designed to entertain and inform guests from all walks of life.

This exercise strikes fear into most but the hard work has been done.  The assessment is about sharing a genuine love of nature with like-minded people and putting your own personal stamp on the proceedings.  Anyone can read a guide book on safari but the true skill of a nature guide is to be able to involve and entertain and host guests, interpret behaviour and signs and most importantly, link every aspect of the natural world with another.  The bush is not made up of hundreds of individual organisms, it is an intricate network of symbiotic relationships honed by millennia of evolution!

Students excelled themselves and enjoyed a host of sightings during assessment week including daily giraffe encounters and a few white rhino along the way.  Markers were set with regard to interactivity on drives such as the tea made fresh from russet bushwillow (Combretum hereroense) seed pods, spinach from the leaves of the buffalo thorn (Ziziphus mucronata) and even a necklace made from impala dung!  Suffice to say that the students performed brilliantly across the board I am delighted to report that their high standards set in the theory aspects were upheld, with all passing their assessments with flying colours!  I can honestly say that the standard was hugely high and as an instructor, it is so satisfying to see a group of strangers coming so far in such a short period of time.  I joined EcoTraining to try and do my part to uphold the standards of the guiding industry and on the evidence of this group, the future of guiding in SA looks bright!  

Article and photos by Ben Coley

First impressions - a warm welcome indeed

The first drive for the new group of students was certainly one that they will remember.

Darkness enshrouded the road as our vehicles careful picked a path down the old 2-track.  After about 200m of meandering through some thick bush, we caught the first glimpse of eye shine in the long grass.  Necks craned to get a better look of what lay before us and it wasn’t long before the magnificence of a male lion came into view.  His belly was full as he lifted his head to watch our approach.  After a short time, he succumbed to his digestive task, panting heavily as he tried to deal with the extra 40-50kgs of meat now resting in his grossly distended stomach!  The students were overjoyed – and rightly so!  At only 4 and half, ‘Sub-Zero’ as he is known, is a hugely impressive specimen of lion.  Having grown up in a reserve with no competition, he has been able to focus all of his energy into growing, and it shows.  At this relatively tender age, he is already sporting a thick dark mane and must tip the scales at well over 200kgs.

As we tried to ascertain the origin of his bulging belly, a crack rang out through the still night.  Moments later, another; followed by an aggressive snarl that cut through the silence of the African bush. Lions on a kill!  We edged the land rovers around a thicket and on the other side found the rest of the pride feasting on a freshly killed zebra.  Such is the pecking order of lions, the male would have satiated his immense appetite before allowing the other members to eat their fill.  This they were doing with relish!  After a few minutes however, the male decided that there was still more space in his stomach and he waddled back to the kill to gorge himself further.

For the next 20minutes the students sat engrossed as ribs were cracked by powerful teeth and the scissoring motion of the powerful carnassial teeth cut away chunks of protein-rich flesh.  Thanks to the habituation levels of Karongwe’s pride, all this was happening a mere 10m from where we sat!  There was no need to discuss the behaviour being exhibited: nature’s brutality was there for all to see!  The only sound to accompany the gnashing of teeth and snarls as the choice cuts were argued over was the click of cameras as the students filled up memory cards trying ingrain the memory in digital format for eternity.

Time however is always against us and as the full moon cast its ethereal glow across the bushveld, dinner called and we began the trip home bathed in the soft moonlight.  Conversation boiled with memories of the scene just witnessed but the bush was not done with us yet!  As we rounded a corner, we were met with the sleek profile of a large female leopard in the road!  She watched us momentarily before melting away into an impenetrable thicket but not before we could positively identify that she was heavily pregnant!  In time we hope to bring you news of some new arrivals to the reserve!!  Finally we arrived back at camp – what a drive!!  And just when we thought it couldn’t get any better, we were treated to burger night! 

New recruits, welcome to Karongwe!!

Blog post and photos by Ben Coley

Putting the students to the test!

The current crop of students recently completed their first practical observation test.  70 questions, most centering on identifying phenomena encountered in the bush, would prove a stern examination as to whether the previous 3 week’s information had sunk in.  The morning of the test was like any other but there was an air of unease within the camp.  Students were dotted around the camp, coffee in one hand, book in the other as they used these last vital moments to try to cement their new-found knowledge.  Wide eyes and furrowed brows seemed to be the order of the day.

For the next 6 hours, the students dredged their memory banks as Gerhard and I set them a number of questions related to what we found in the bush.  From tracks to trees, dung to bird calls, the students were subjected to all manner of questions.  Some rounds were tough, some were easier but all our budding guides performed admirably, and many surprised us with the level of detail that they had retained.  The practical observation test is a great way for the students to see how much they have learned but it is also when we find out whether our teaching has been successful!  The pressure is on for us all!  But I am very happy to report that everyone breached the 75% pass mark with many scores being in the 90’s!

This is the first of many practical tests that the students will experience during their quest for an EcoTraining qualification.  In the coming weeks they will have to tackle bird call and slide identification, snake slide ID, frog calls and a second, more challenging practical observation, not to mention a handful of written theory exams.  All of these skills will hopefully set them up well for their final test, the practical assessment, which awaits them in just 3 weeks’ time!

After 8 years guiding in the lodge industry, I have seen all manner of guides ply their trade in the bush.  Some have been good and some, not so.  For the guests that come on safari this may be their one and only chance to experience the majesty of this land, and it is a guide’s obligation to ensure that they have a life-altering journey.  EcoTraining is in the unique position to send out the next generation of field guides with the knowledge that we believe is essential to give a guest the best possible experience.  Make no mistake:  this course is tough, but the rewards one can reap from understanding the complexities and intricacies of the bush are priceless

Blog and photos by Ben Coley

Professional Field Guide Course - Book Now

One of EcoTraining’s most popular courses is the Professional field guide course. For one year you will be exposed to diverse ecological and geological terrains, landscapes, wildlife species and so much more at our wilderness camps in places like Makuleke, Karongwe, Selati (South Africa) and Mashatu (Botswana). A constantly stimulating environment to learn is aided by our instructors, all having many years of guide training experience and time in the bush, and each with their own unique way of training and guiding that will enhance your overall training experience.

Visit our webpage for more information - http://www.ecotraining.co.za/courses/fgasa-accredited-courses/13-professional-field-guide