From Boots to a Wildlife Corridor: The Wild Tomorrow Story with Co-Founders John Steward and Wendy Hapgood (Part 1)

What happens when two people leave corporate life behind and start solving conservation problems one practical need at a time? In the first episode of an ongoing seven-part series, Dr. Diane talks with Wild Tomorrow's co-founders John Steward and Wendy Hapgood about turning boots, socks, and urgency into a wildlife corridor in South Africa. This episode is about conservation, community, and the power of asking what is actually needed before trying to solve the problem.

John shares how volunteering with painted wolves changed his life, while Wendy reflects on leaving finance after a personal and professional wake-up call that made her want to become “a salesperson for nature.” Learn how meeting a real need for rangers slowly grew into a major effort for acquiring and rewilding land, creating habitat corridors, supporting rangers, empowering local women, and partnering with community programs for young children. 

Chapters:

• 01:15 From Corporate Careers to Wildlife Conservation – How John and Wendy left advertising and finance to protect endangered species
• 08:13 The Ranger Tire Story That Started Wild Tomorrow – How one urgent need sparked a conservation organization
• 16:50 Building a Wildlife Corridor in South Africa – Buying land, rewilding habitat, and connecting nature reserves
• 29:19 Conservation and Community Partnership – The Green Mambas, local kindergartens, and sustainable employment
• 40:18 Baby Giraffes, Hope, and Falling in Love with Nature 
• 50:50 How to Support Wild Tomorrow Fund 

Links & Resources:

• Learn about Wild Tomorrow
• Support Wild Tomorrow
• Learn about my trip with CBCC and Wild Tomorrow
• Listen to CBCC episodes with John and Hayley Rocco; Juana Martinez-Neal; Molly Idle; Leah Henderson; Kayla Harren; Meg Fleming; Brenda Scott Royce; and Ann Dye.
• Follow Wild Tomorrow on Instagram, Facebook, and LinkedIn.
  
  
  

Transcript

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SPEAKER_03 0:00

So, welcome to the Adventure Simone podcast. I am your host, Dr. Diane, and this is the start of a series that's very near to my heart. Many of you know that last fall I had the opportunity to travel to South Africa and work with the amazing team at Wild Tomorrow. For the next few episodes, we're gonna be introducing you to this organization and we're gonna be spending some time understanding the power of conservation to make a difference in this world. To start, we have John Stewart and Wendy Hapgood, and they are the co-founders of Wild Tomorrow, and I am so excited to welcome them to the show. Wonder, Curiosity, Connection. Where will your adventures take you? I'm Dr. Diane, and thank you for joining me on today's episode of Adventures in Learning. John and Wendy, thank you for joining us.

SPEAKER_01 0:56

Thank you very much, Diana. Thank you.

SPEAKER_03 0:59

Thank you so much, Dr. Diane. We're excited to be here. John and Wendy, you all come to this from a very interesting perspective because when you founded Wild Tomorrow, you were both in very different careers. How did you enter the world of conservation?

SPEAKER_01 1:15

Yeah, well, I was in advertising. I was a creative director. I was working for clients like Volvo Cars. That was my main one for many years. And while I did love it, I loved working with teams. I I noticed that I wasn't sharing the passion that people around me were feeling. And I decided that I was going to try something different for a while. So instead of going on vacation to Mexico or something, I thought, what can I do to make a difference in the world? So I started Googling and I started Googling volunteer. I started Googling volunteer animals. That's literally the two words I put in. Animals have always been my passion, even though I was in the advertising world. And I found myself through Google searching in South Africa. And I joined an organization, a volunteer organization, that were monitoring endangered species. And in this case, when I went, it was wild dogs. So wild dogs also known as painted wolves. And I joined a team, and day and night we would be out there finding these wild dogs because there were so few left in the world that everyone mattered. So we'd use telemetry, like a like an odd TV aerial, to find these wild dogs to make sure that they'd all made it through the night. Because if they hadn't, if they'd been caught in a snare, then the alarm would be raised and we'd see if we could find them. Because again, everyone mattered. And while I was there, I it just everything, I was like a sponge. I wanted to know everything. And I think the people in in charge of the volunteer trip saw something different in me than a typical volunteer. Because I was so curious. And I was like, but why this? Who that? When this? And that they I think they gave back to me all of the all of the effort that I was putting in to learn. And that started to change me. And I started asking these big questions like, what would you leave behind? What am I doing? And yes, I had stuff, I had watches, I had country homes, but what why? But you know, I was learning so much about not only the beauty of wildlife, but also the perils and the and the the problems that it was facing. So that started me on my journey to change my life. And over the course of two to three years, I'd kept up contact with this particular organization. I tried to work for them, but they said they couldn't afford me. And in New York. And I I said, you know what, how about I do it myself? And then that leads into Wendy's story, I think.

SPEAKER_00 4:12

Yeah, so we I'd moved before meeting John. I I'm from Australia originally. You can maybe hear it slightly in my accent. I grew up, I love nature. My family, when I was really little, had a sheep farm, and that's all I remember of my childhood is climbing trees and loving sheep and animals and not understanding what I thought a sheep farm was for wool, but anyway. So I found myself, I studied science, engineering, and Japanese, ended up in Japan, and ended up working in finance in electronic foreign exchange, like currencies. And one day I was sitting at my desk and I was like, you know what? What? I was very, very unhappy. You know, I didn't intend to work in finance. I sort of ended up there. And it definitely was lots of great opportunities working around the world. But there's an Australian author, Bryce Courtney, who has a quote that I felt really encapsulated the mo what I felt in my life at that time. It's he said, so many people climb the ladder of success only to find it's against the wrong wall. And I really felt like that. I looked at the people around me, I looked at the people above me. I thought, I don't want to be them. I don't want to get paid more to have more stress and to feel so deeply unhappy. So I knew I needed to make a change. And then I feel like the world made the change for me. Literally, I was in Tokyo when the uh big uh earthquake struck. I was in my office and the world started shaking. And then I saw, you know, I was on a trading floor. So there's the big screens. I saw this chaos unfolding, which was the Fukushima nuclear crisis. And what struck me, you know, it was very scary to be in a kind of unfolding nuclear disaster, first of all, and to worry about taking a bath and thinking my water is contaminated, worried about going outside, nuclear rain. It was like really living in this dystopian reality. And but what shocked me the most was people like, you know, subsequent in subsequent weeks saying, well, it doesn't matter, nobody died. And I was like, what do you mean? Like the earth, we've poisoned the earth for thousands of years, you know, and you may remember in the news the the radioactive water was leaked being deliberately, you know, let out into the ocean, and people in California were worried about eating fish. I remember that. And so I felt like there was a lot of yeah, I just felt like I personally wanted to undo some of that damage that we'd done. This idea that we had poisoned nature and not that many people seemed to care. So anyway, I ended up that day actually was my interview to to move to New York, and I moved to New York with the bank, but this growing feeling had come that I needed to change my life and do something to help nature. And I met, I was single, I met John, we met on Tinder places. And we were both at that same place in life of thinking, you know what, what can I do to make a difference? And for me, being I had been in sales in finance in in the bank, I was like, you know what, I want to be a salesperson for nature. I want to help, you know, raise money really to I was like, what can I do with these skills that I learned that I somehow ended up falling into finance? So I thought I want to be a salesperson for nature and help undo some of that damage that we've done. So then yeah, it kind of fell together so well, John and I meeting each other and knowing really it was helping animals as well. I've always been in nature. I thought about all the things that made me happy in my life, as opposed to the unhappiness, and it was being out in nature, volunteering, helping animals. I'd also done sort of similar things to John, volunteered at Elephant Sanctuary in Thailand. And those were the things that spoke to my heart, and I knew that was the direction that we needed to head in. And then John had had that experience in Africa and South Africa and scene, you saw the Rangers, you know, while you were volunteering, right? Like you saw the gap that was needed to be filled, right?

SPEAKER_01 8:14

Yeah, there was there there was one very memorable moment that that changed me. We we would it it it's it's always stuck in my memory. Us volunteers, the four of us and the volunteer coordinator, would be out on patrol on the back of this Jeep, and we felt kind of special. You know, we weren't tourists, we were part of the you know, the crew. And we would always pass the anti-poaching rangers, and they were very serious. They were in their camo and they had their guns and they were patrolling the fence line to keep poachers out because this reserve that I was on had rhinos specifically. They were af the poachers were targeting rhinos, and we would always wave to them as we went by, and maybe they would wave back, but usually they just stared at us. But we we knew they were, you know, that they were they were professionals. And we'd see them every day, and then I didn't see them one day, and I didn't see them the next day. And I I asked our coordinator, I said, Hey, uh uh haven't seen the APU guys, what's up? And he said, Oh, I I heard that they have just gone through their last set of tires, because out there in South Africa you get a lot of punctures, all those acacia trees. And he said, Yeah, and they they don't know when they're getting out again because there's no money in the budget. And I was like, that's ridiculous. That that's crazy. I have money and I padded my pocket, I had dollars. I said, let's let's get them out. Let's go.

SPEAKER_00 9:49

Buy some tires.

SPEAKER_01 9:50

Buy some tires. And he said, I it's not quite that simple. You can't just give money and it and there's protocols. But the point was to me that hey, I I can do this. I just came with it's not petty cash, but I just came with cash. And I could solve this problem. It was a very tangible problem that I could set solve. And then I thought, you know what, if I feel this way, I bet I know others. I I bet I know one more person than those one more person. And that was the beginning of while tomorrow we started to fill the gap that that was not being filled to help government reserves with objects that weren't typically funded, or objects that were needed immediately. They were they were like these urgent issues.

SPEAKER_00 10:42

And yeah, not very sexy for most funders, like a pair of boots or tires for a vehicle, or batteries, or even the most simple things that were needed, like a flashlight, you know, or I think I'm always laughing because it's kind of funny, but you're like, no one ever asks rangers, do you need a pair of socks, right? Like, so pairs of socks and yeah, the learning that these protected areas, government funded, that are responsible for protecting, and it's a story around the world, it's not just South Africa, responsible for protecting biodiversity, these amazing parks, rhinos, elephants, sort of everything within their borders, the operating budgets keep getting reduced so that the people on the front lines, the very last green line of defense for wildlife, the rangers, were, yeah, that their boots were have holes in them. Uh actually, they do a survey of ranges around the world, and it was something crazy like 50% of rangers have to buy their own boots, you know? And it's so demotivating if you're that person risking your life or going out in the rain, going out at night time to try to do your job and to feel proud about it when you can't, when your shirt is full of holes. So that's that's what we how we started small with Wild Tomorrow, just raising funds. Uh first of all, asking Rangers exactly what they need. And we were guided by the former the volunteer coordinator who you worked with, who had seen so much in his time working with government reserves that a lot of NGOs come in and say, We think we you need a drone. You need a drone, you know. And it's like actually, you know, if you ask them what they need, it's much better better, obviously.

SPEAKER_01 12:28

And they're gonna tell you before the drone, we kind of would love a drone, but actually we really need boots and we need and and on top of that, when we asked the managers of these reserves, they said, don't give us money because we don't know if we'll see that money again because we have to report it. If you can come to the gate with boots, with socks, and give them to me, I will give them to the Rangers. And that's what we did. There were so many fantastic people working on the ground in these reserves. Unfortunately, sometimes, and this is a problem throughout the world, sometimes the the the money isn't spent where it's needed most. Right. Uh so as an NGO, we we needed to, if we were going to be taking money from people, we needed to be sure that that money was going to where these people wanted it to be spent because we're a public organization. We need to guarantee that the money as much as possible, 90 something percent. You know, there may be a little bit that's needed for petrol to get to the reserve. But apart from that, the money is spent on what these people want. So that's it.

SPEAKER_03 13:42

Well, and I love the fact that you all actually you did the things that having come from a nonprofit world as well, you did the right things. You didn't come in with a solution. You came in with a conversation and you actually talked to the people that you wish to serve. And instead of putting your own ideas onto it, you went with what they did. But I also love the fact that you've been very diligent about where the funds go and making sure that they make it into the hands. I was part of one of those deliveries when I was there, getting to bring boots to the rangers. And having followed them through the uh brush, I 100% appreciate the need for those boots.

SPEAKER_00 14:22

Well, that's so great. You got to deliver some of the supplies. We do the big World Ranger Day campaign, and then Tori and the teen get the fun job of delivering and seeing the rangers so happy. I always feel like not embarrassed. It's like it feels so small to me. Like, you know, we I went, I was on a delivery to False Bay, which is right next door to us, part of a World Heritage Wetland Park. And a few years ago, I'll never forget, speaking to the the head of the park, and he was saying the budget that he had to to equip his rangers for the year for uniforms meant that he could choose to buy one thing. Like he had to choose to buy one shirt for everybody or one pair of pants for everybody. And so, you know, we came at that time, it was things they'd asked for flashlights, handcuffs, torches, shirts, uniforms. And you know, it wasn't it's not a huge uh amount of money uh that goes into buying those things. I mean, but they were so grateful. Like I just felt like I wish that we could have done even more. Yeah, they shouldn't, we shouldn't on to you know, the we got obviously in the ideal world the government should have a proper operating budget for these reserves, but we weren't just making their their bodies more comfortable, we were uh raising morale.

SPEAKER_01 15:42

I mean, we can all think about when we put on a a new outfit or we get a new haircut, you stand a bit taller. And it w that we we were hoping, and I think we were successful in that in giving them a bit more a bit a bit more energy into what they do. Because if you're not if you're not if you don't feel like anybody's caring for you, then yeah.

SPEAKER_03 16:06

And the job of the ranger is such an important job in terms of protecting the endangered species and helping the not just the rhinos, but all of the animals. And it's good for the community as well. So standing a little taller makes a difference.

SPEAKER_00 16:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 16:23

And you all have gone beyond. I mean, you're continuing to fund the rangers, you've got the green mambas, but you've also gotten into conservation and land yourselves. And I know when I was there, it was talking about, you know, for the first time in 120 years, the dream is that the elephants will be able to make it from the mountains to the water. Can you talk a little bit about that process and how you wound up creating reserves?

unknown 16:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 16:51

I think it's funny because we didn't wake up in New York one day and go, oh, let's create a wildlife reserve. It started small with boots, socks for rangers. And then one day, we were about one year in as an organization raising. I think our first year we raised $40,000, which was like huge, we thought. And next year we, we, a partner who we've been working with was like, you've got to come and see this piece of land. It's up for sale. This can't happen. Like two pineapple farmers had already put in offers to buy, and they would extend their farms and deforest everything and in turn it into rows of pineapple. So we're like, I don't know what we can do about that, but we'll come and see. And we went, I think we got video of like walking there and seeing the land. And there were a few zebra. Yeah. It was very dry. We went down to the river, and there was, you know, it was an older lady who owned the land that lived in the city. It was her family's farm. Her father had given it to her and her siblings, and then over the years, so she was wanting to settle her estate, so she put it up for sale. And the asking price then in US dollar equivalent was uh $1.3 million. So that felt like a lot more than a pair of boots. I was like, oh man, what are we gonna do? So we we thought we went to see it, right? And I remember we were coming home, we went and we had a cup of maybe that no, the first time we went to see it, right? We did see her. We got back on the plane and we were talking to each other. I was very nervous, like, oh, what are we gonna do? Like, how are we gonna raise that amount of money? But we felt like we had to at least try because what's the worst thing that could happen? We didn't, you know, make it. But so I remember thinking, you know, a million dollars is a lot of money. But in New York City, it's like a studio apartment. You know, like thinking about like the difference. This is like a piece of land acres in a global biodiversity hotspot on a river that feeds into a World Heritage wetland, you know, exactly the spot you don't want industrial like farming and chemicals. And, you know, it was across the river from the Manuana, the Pinder Private Game Reserve, that was a rewilding success story. So we knew it was possible to turn degraded farmland, uh, you know, it had been farmed partly before, back into habitat for for for wildlife and to rewild. But yeah, that was a huge number, 1.3 million US dollars. So I feel like we we knew if we could just find the right people, if we could find the animal lovers of New York City and tell the story of this land and the home it could be for wildlife, that we could raise the money. So yeah, we started talking to people. And I credit my cat a lot for this. I had a beautiful cat who nobu who had health problems, and he was so fierce if you took him to the vet that I found a vet you could call to your house, and her name was Vet Wendy, was Wendy as well. She was from New Zealand. So we bombed it and we told her about this land, and she said, Okay, guys, give me your proposal. I will tell my clients about it, you know, because she was already connected as a vet to all a lot of animal lovers in New York City. So she told, you know, who she could about it and introduced them to us. We had them over to our house, right? We had dinner, they come meet us, and we showed pictures, told the story, because we really needed people to give us not $50, but $20,000, you know, at a time. And so we met several people who are still in our in World Tomorrow's sort of community now and and wanted to help save the land. And one of them is our now chairman, Seth Hendon, and he's like private equity, so like really understands how to make a deal. And he's like, we need to kind of make a deal here because we don't have the million dollars. So John and I went back to South Africa. We met with the lady, Mrs. Vessels, in her living room in Pretoria, which is next to Johannesburg, and told our story. And she definitely preferred that we buy it. You know, for her to have the family farm sort of saved. Uh but it wasn't conservation that motivated her. She said uh they used to farm some cattle there, and the plastic that they use in pineapple farming is really poisonous for cattle if they eat it. So she hated the black plastic and didn't want that. But she also said to us something really interesting, she said she was sort of confused why us amur well, you know, foreigners coming out would want to to help save this land in South Africa. She said, Don't you have your own elephants to save?

SPEAKER_01 21:36

Yeah. Yeah, we didn't quite know what you know, was was she thinking that America had elephants? We wasn't quite sure. But but we we said, Well, these these elephants are not yours, ours, or theirs. They're it's the planets. And yes, geographically they are quite a long way from where we Have chosen to live, but it's the planets that uh the global responsibility to try to save wildlife.

SPEAKER_00 22:08

Yeah. So we did a deal with her and she gave us, she knew we said we don't have a million dollars, but if you give us time, we'll raise it. And so she did. She we had to make a deposit and she gave us five years interest-free to raise the rest. So that was a really a legacy we told of her for her to do that for us. We said in return, you know, you you can name it, you please. And so she I remember being very worried because her first name was Dolly, that she'd say, come up with the name, it's the Dolly Conservancy. But no, thankfully, she chose the name Ukuwela. It was such a beautiful and meaningful name.

SPEAKER_01 22:47

Zulu word.

SPEAKER_00 22:48

Zulu word, which means to cross over, which was the vision of the land, even at that time, that one piece was as a as a place wildlife could cross the river over into. So that was amazing that she gave that opportunity to us and left that legacy.

SPEAKER_01 23:08

Yeah, and then what once so once we successfully protected Ukawala, we rewilded it with a lot of the species that can't get through fences. So many species don't care about fences. The leopards, the advocacy, the honey badgers, the the mongoose, they the warthog. They they were there on the land. And they'd come from other places. You know, as in we we in in all of our homes around the world, we'll see raccoons or foxes walking down the street, and they don't care. But the there were larger species like giraffe, zebra that we wanted to reintroduce and re- we we rewilded them. So once we had a gorela, the more we stared at the map and the more we spoke to people that had experience in the area, the more we realized that we were perfectly placed to create a corridor that could link our two neighbors. So the Munuana was one neighbor and they are 70,000 hectares.

SPEAKER_00 24:13

It's a private reserve, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 24:15

Then there's a gap. We were the gap. Then you get Isimangaliso Wetland Park, which is UNESCO, and that is 800,000 hectares. And it it had been a dream of conservationists for a long while to capture these pieces, these privately owned pieces that we were now looking at to be able to join the two. So Ukawela was one of those pieces. It's like a puzzle. But there was about another eight or nine that needed to be filled. And fast forward ten years, we have now purchased every single one of those and taken down fences in between all of them.

SPEAKER_03 25:00

That's just incredible. So you've done that in the last ten years. What are the goals and the hopes moving forward? What still needs to be done?

SPEAKER_01 25:10

Well, the fences are not dropped on either of the sides on the two. So all of our internal fences are now dropped. On the on the the boundaries, the outer boundaries, they're yet to be dropped. And that gets into politics, it just gets into people the more the the the the larger the the it the the project, the issues, the the the the more care that needs to be taken. It will happen. It in in humans terms, it feels like forever, but in nature's terms, it'll happen. We're talking to we're talking to them. And that so that's a relatively short-term project of ours. Longer term, there is still properties in the area that are contiguous with ours that we'd love to save because they while we have the corridor, if we can widen it, if we can protect pieces that are bordering the UNESCO, we can help protect the wetlands because these pieces that we want are active pineapple farms that are using pesticides, insecticides, that are leaching into the soil, that are going into the wetlands. And we so while we while we have our corridor, there are still pieces that we feel are desperate to protect.

SPEAKER_00 26:33

And I think just to add the science part, I I'm sure your listeners all know, but I'll just reminder that the number one cause of extinction, the mass extinction of wildlife is habitat loss and also habitat fragmentation. So the way to directly address that challenge is to protect what's left and then restore these ha areas to create, basically regenerate habitat for wildlife. And if you can reconnect existing protected areas together, that's kind of pushing back against fragmentation. So you're reconnecting these wild landscapes so that wildlife can move through and exchange genetics. And that truly is the key to reversing or pushing back against the forces of extinction. So that is really what we're working on.

SPEAKER_03 27:26

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SPEAKER_00 29:19

Yeah. Well, and another just statistic that blows my mind that I always think about to just set the scene is that if you take the biomass of the planet today and weight it, the living things, 96% is us, humans and the animals that we raise to to eat. So cattle and chicken and and us and then plants that we raise that we grow to eat. But so we've really taken up space on the planet. 96% of it is us and and our needs, and 4% is wild. I mean, there's uh more cats and dogs. The weight of cats and dogs is more than like most living things on the planet as well. And I love, I love our pets, of course. But so we've really taken up space. So we need to make space for wildlife. And we're we, the, you know, the world is trying to align a bit like climate goals towards habitat protection to protect uh 30% of land for wildlife by 2030. And that's all to get to this goal of 50% protected. It doesn't mean without people, it just means that viable habitat for wildlife. Because if we can get to 50%, then that's where we actually need to be to save biodiversity. You know, wildlife needs space as well. So that's the science. And then I think it's so hopeful because in regenerating, in in protecting habitat, you have to restore it. And we have this amazing team of Zulu people, local people, 14 women, one lucky man, I say, the green mumbers, who through their job, like so they're employed full-time with Wild Tomorrow. And these ladies have big Zulu families, they've got a lot of mouths to feed, a lot of people depend upon them. They are often the only person in their family working. It's a very rural rural area where we are on the northeast coast of South Africa, where employment is like impossibly high. So every job is truly an economic lifeline. And so through their work restoring nature, they're also supporting their families and restoring their lives as well and and reconnecting with nature. I mean, they're tough jobs.

SPEAKER_03 31:27

Did you work alongside the I thought I was strong until I worked alongside a green mamba and we were pulling the invasive plants and we're all trying to pull, and they just reach over and grab and toss it over their shoulder and laugh and move on.

SPEAKER_00 31:43

I remember one day they and it's not I I think, oh gosh, like imagine hacking out alien plants, what you might find from spiders to snakes to one time a leopard under a bush, a sleeping leopard. I think it scared them as much as they scared it, and uh they called Kevin, our reserve manager, and said they wanted danger pay. They've actually come seriously though, they've done wildlife awareness training to understand like it's not so it's not an easy job, but they're proud, they're very proud to be green members and to support their families. And the other way, you know, I think our and I think that's truly our greatest impact is yes, on the wild world, but also local community. And we're so proud to put our community work really at the center of everything that we do. And we also work with two local kindergartens. So making sure or doing our best to support the youngest learners in the community. Early, you know, we're not experts in this at all, but early childhood development is so important and really has a huge influence on your future as an individual.

SPEAKER_03 32:51

That was one of my favorite parts of the trip, I have to tell you. I love the animals, don't get me wrong. The animals were amazing, but to get to be at the crush with the little ones and to read and play soccer and paint the mural was amazing.

SPEAKER_00 33:05

Oh, the mural you did was amazing. And what I loved about that too is that a PWAR community manager asked them what animal they want, what kind of artwork they want on their wall, which is in keeping with our philosophy, you know. And I I was actually very somewhat surprised but impressed they came up with Rhino. Because, you know, local people are and the kids, they're so unfortunately distanced from nature. And these reserves, including ours, have big fences to keep wildlife in. Uh, and by law, you also have to. And I always felt it was deeply unfair that we as foreigners could come to South Africa and see rhinos and work hands-on with rhinos at dehorning. I know you did that too, and um see the zebra, see the giraffe, and that yet the kids who live just down the road, it's like a what a 10-minute drive across the river, have not had that opportunity. And so, yeah, we are a community. I I was impressed that they chose the rhino, you know, that understanding and knowing that that's such an important part of we're such a charismatic species. It's why people come to visit. It's it's their natural heritage. So I think it's really beautiful. We have a dream that one day when well when our reserve has rhinos, that the community will name it, you know, that they can choose the name of the rhino rather than someone else. So yeah. Uh so yeah, we have the two crushes and a Pee-Way, our community manager who a community conservation education manager kind of noticed it was a little bit more like babysitting. The teachers are volunteers, they haven't had the opportunity to go and train as a teacher, or especially not in early childhood development. So she found an NGO locally that is uh specializes in exactly that, working with these local crucious kindergartens to support them to professionalize and train the teachers and also give them the education and materials that they need. So I'm not sure when you were there, were you putting up there was new posters and everything?

SPEAKER_03 35:05

There were new posters going in, yes. They I think they had just gotten a couple of boxes of curriculum materials.

SPEAKER_00 35:12

Yes. So we were so excited about that. It's an investment in those two kindergartens. It's a three to five year journey with them on everything from how to manage a business because they need to be charging for the parents a small amount for every child to come. They need to be taking attendance that need to have the you know the educational materials. So it's a real big investment and support for those kindergarteners to to help the teachers be the best that they can be and to have the support that they need. And did you meet Jenny as well? Yes. So she came on board as part of that program. Jenny is from the local community, MDoku. She's amazing because she got her degree in education, actually specializing in ECD early childhood development. She did it remotely, like uh through the South African local university. So part of the requirement for this program was to have someone who's qualified as a degree in education to kind of project manage and roll out the program with the teachers. So that's Jenny's role, and she's amazing.

SPEAKER_01 36:20

I think the the the way that we work with communities, I hope, has the same thinking as the way that we originally worked with the reserves. We do not go in and say, this is what you need. We don't go in and say, okay, tell we have this much money, here's what you can spend, and we'll just hand you something. What we're hoping is for for them to grow with us, alongside us, to for them to see that we're partners. We're not a quote unquote charity coming with a truck to give them stuff. We are there to work with them, alongside them, to help protect nature and proving that they can benefit from it as well. And the the Wildlife Conservation Center that we've we've proudly created, there's a lot of space. And w we know a lot of what can what will happen at the conservation center, like offices and research facilities for universities. We also don't know a lot of what can be used for. And we will we will watch and listen and learn and find ways for the community to get involved. And one one idea that came out of nowhere was Wendy and I went to a a fair, a pop-up market in U in the US, and it was on sustainability, and there was a small booth that was showing how you could you could use plastics to recycle plastics and create new objects at a much smaller scale than had been that that is out there at the moment. So we're like, what if we created uh this little workshop at a conservation center where we could have people, first of all, c help clean up their community because their the refuse collection services are lacking.

SPEAKER_00 38:13

There's none.

SPEAKER_01 38:14

There's none. So that's that that's that's number one one problem that we could be helping with is cleaning up their own own community. We could pay them for their services. They could bring it to us at the conservation center. With our machinery that we could get donated by our donors, we could then employ people to turn that old plastic into objects that the community tells us that they would like. So, and we don't know what that is. And and it's great that we don't know what that is. Is is it a keychain or is it a brick? We will learn. And then from that, we'll do a proper business plan. But does the person that bring the plastic get the object? Or do they do they do we then sell it to them at a token amount, but still there has to be an exchange. They have to feel like they purchased. Are there people within the community that want to set up a business to then share to to go out and sell this this stuff? So it's all all of these projects like this plastic, is we're we're we're just we can't wait for them to come to us. You know, we will vet the ideas and we will weigh up whether we think they can be successful. But that's what we love about Wild Tomorrow is we we are not there to do this. We are there to just go on this journey with our donors, with our supporters, with the community, and we will Wendy and I, it's our job to guide in the right direction to to get to success.

SPEAKER_03 39:52

I love that. And I was just thinking as you were talking that rewilding in and of itself is an adventure and it's sort of a destination where you don't know for sure what the outcome is going to look like, but you do your very best and you get the outcome. You know, you had baby giraffes when I was there in September, or they were in process of being there, you know, and that wasn't there 10 years ago.

SPEAKER_00 40:17

Um I love I love the rewilding movement and this idea that it's kind of letting go of control and seeing, well, firstly very ecocentric, seeing humans as part of the ecosystem, not dominating over and you know, restoring those complicated interactions between you know, bits and parts parts of the ecosystem. I feel like we, you know, we don't even understand how complicated they are. So restoring, you know, rewilding is thinking of the ecosystem as a whole, not focused on one specific species. And that idea that ultimately you kind of take your hands off and let nature be. And to see those giraffes having their little babies, that to me, the giraffe calves, the baby giraffe are symbolic of everything that we've tried to do. To to see them, you know, and they love Ukuwela, that first piece of land that is more looks like grassland. I mean, that is because it was farmed for pineapples long ago, decades ago. And if you from a drone see it, you can see the the the furrows that were the lines of pineapples. But when you're on the ground, it's just looks totally wild. And that's the giraffe love that area. And to see those baby giraffe being born is so symbolic of everything that we're trying to do. And if you give, if you protect space for nature and you give it and space to just be, it will restore itself. So we don't need to buy wildlife anymore. The wild the giraffe, the zebra, they are kind of rewilding themselves. And those little beautiful calves just mean everything to us and show people what is possible. And I think, you know, we're just two people in New York who wanted to make a difference. And we had so many people who donated in the beginning, you know, to save one acre. And that idea that you could save one acre yourself, donate your Facebook birthday and raise a thousand dollars it was to buy an acre. Or when we were having to buy wildlife to rewild, you know, people would sponsor a zebra or sponsor a giraffe. And that knowing and feeling as an individual in the face of these huge challenges, like thinking about climate change or mass extinction of wildlife, you or I don't know, the poaching of elephants. It feels like you're so disempowered that you as a person, what you're like one little drop in the ocean, but you are one drop in the ocean. And I think that like we've seen it, like collectively, what people can do. You have individuals, yeah, buying an acre or sponsoring a giraffe, or you know, sponsoring the green numbers. And it all adds up to this really big, beautiful outcome, which is seeing now this nature reserve, and now it's like a corridor, like it started from one piece and now it's a corridor. And we had when we started, it was John and I and two scientists in South Africa. Now it's John and I in New York and another one and a half people, but in South Africa, we have 50 in our team now. We could never have imagined that. So, you know, and and uh together with the Green Mumbers, we have 10 Rangers, and it's a similar story that they supporting their families, an extended community through their jobs that they're very proud of as rangers protecting the reserve and the wildlife and being ambassadors for the wild wolves.

SPEAKER_03 43:43

So they're such good ambassadors, you know. And I as you were talking, I was also thinking, oh, you started with that one bit of land. Actually, you started with socks and you started with boots and the volunteering, but the biodiversity is stunning. You know, when we often when we We're taught in America and we're taught about South Africa. Generally, everything's lumped into Africa anyway. You know, our geography is abysmal. And we're taught habitats and biomes. And you're taught to largely think that Africa as a continent is the grasslands. And what I found stunning in my time there was just in that the space that you all have, you have the sand forest, you've got, you know, the grasslands, you've got the river. There were so many different microcosms of habitat and different animals specialized in each place. And that for me got me thinking about how do we raise awareness in a world where people lump things together. And as you said, 4% maybe currently is space for the wild. If you couple that with the mentality that, you know, it's all one thing, you know, penguins live in Antarctica and lions live on the savannah of Africa, and we don't know those nuances. How do we educate people so that they care, so that they see beyond the gloom and doom of the headlines and want to be a part of something like this, whether it's in South Africa or whether it's in New York?

SPEAKER_00 45:16

I think people get lost in that big, big picture of doom and gloom, and it feels so overwhelming. But if you take it down to like the individual, like you can help this or to the specifics, you can help save this piece of land, or you can help this but individual, like a green mumba, or you know, you could help in our case, we don't need to do this now, but like sponsor a zebra. It feels very tangible the difference that they can make. But to get to that point to where you care. I've actually thought about this a lot. Like, why do I care? Why do you care so much about the wild world and other people don't necessarily? Like, I've thought about it. Would I risk my life to save a rhino? I think I would. I want to say I would, you know, like I feel it that strongly. I think there's a point where people connect to nature deeply. And that could be walking every day in nature, like you're going to your local park. For me personally, I think it was connecting to my pets, like where you have that certain animal in your life that becomes your best friend, that you connect really deep level. It's not every animal that you had like or that you have the chance to get to know, but I felt like I loved my cat so much. And then through that you see the rest of the wild world in a different way. I don't know what your connection was.

SPEAKER_01 46:41

Yeah, I I don't know the the answer to the question, but I think for our generations, let's say anybody that is 40 and above, we care so much because it's something that we've always loved that we're now hearing is in trouble. So the first the first what first happened was we loved it. And then we heard it's not doing well. So we go out and we want to save it. If you anybody, the younger generations, if you start immediately with without the love and you just start with the problem, I don't know what happens. Do they want to protect it? Because we care so much, because it's like one of our family being threatened. Because we fell in love, so we have to make sure that they fall in love. We can't lead with doom and gloom. We w for as long as possible, I don't well okay, I don't know. But for for as long as possible, let's try and not taint their love with, oh, by the way, did you know there's only this many left? Because I don't know what happens to it to somebody then later that all all I know is how we came to this is that there has to be this wonder, this this just awe and this this deep connection to these other animals.

SPEAKER_00 48:00

Which is where I think your group comes in so beautifully, and Haley and John Rocco, who inspired the group of children's book creators coming to to immerse themselves, yourselves in conservation, to take those messages and that beauty and that awe and inspiration and put it in the books, kind of get into their little brains and minds and hearts early on. So I think, yeah, I think about the impact people like Jane Goodall or David Attenborough had, and part of it is that they were commun they were communicators first and foremost. Well, well, Jane Goodall was a scientist first, but the huge impact they had was because their books and the TV and their the images and just being yeah, the communication. So that's where the storytelling I think is so important and getting into young minds and hearts.

SPEAKER_03 48:52

And I I think you're right. I think that a lot of it, it's a combination of things. It's the being out in nature, leaving the classroom. And even if you're just taking a walk around the block with a magnifying glass and spending time in the grass looking at ants, you're building a connection to the natural world. You know, if you are able to bring in when I had my preschool, we brought goats in. When we read the Three Billy Goats Gruff, there was a goat farmer in upstate New York who would bring goats in to play with the kids. And I feel like, you know, you're building that sense of love and awe and wonder. We lived close to a we had a zoo that was attached to a prep school. And so the zookeeper would actually come in. And for my children, he would bring in the, he would bring in some animal ambassadors and they would get a chance to meet them, but then he would invite them out to the zoo at the end of the year. And some of these kids had never been to this zoo, but we would do our end-of-year picnic out there, and they would get a chance to walk around with their families and fall in love in this natural environment. And it's sort of the more opportunities we can create like that for children. And I think some of it is through the pages of a book because I know I've lived in places where kids have never left their community. You know, they lived an hour from Washington, D.C. and they had never been to the capital city. And, you know, that's where books can take you places. You know, television can take you places. The work that you all are doing, especially when it's shared, can take you places. And so it's finding ways to help people I guess touch touch it and feel it and be part of it. And so I hope that this series of conversations we're going to do with Wild Tomorrow will help people to begin to experience that and feel that they too can be part of your journey. Which leads to my second to last question. If people want to be part of your journey, what are some ways that they can connect and be part of the Wild Tomorrow family?

SPEAKER_01 50:50

Well, we we have many ways. Perhaps the the the crudest or the the coldest is to say that we have a website with a donate button. And it's important. Yeah, and we give people the option to choose an area where they would like to help us. Um is it the community, is it the wild spaces, or is it helping protect these key species that we're help we're we're protecting like rhinos? That's the the our organization is it it's fueled by donations. But there are so many other ways to get involved with us that we have events around the world that are physical. So we have Team Elephant, and Team Elephant is our marathon runners and our half marathon runners. And if you are a runner, you can you can sign up with us, and we have marathons in New York, Tokyo, Paris, Berlin, Sydney, Cape Town. We're really excited to bring people into our mission through this activity.

SPEAKER_00 52:02

Which is outdoors, yeah, we train outdoors, and I'm always so proud because a lot of when you cheer on the runners, it it kind of reflects philanthropy, uh, like in the US. If you look at the pie of giving only, and Americans are very generous, amazingly generous, and supporting so many worthwhile causes. If you look at that pie, however, it's like three to four percent is this category environment and animals, which is dog and cat shelters, climate change, conservation, three to four percent of giving. And I think it makes no sense to me. We cannot have clean air and clean water, we can't have human health unless we protect ecosystems and biodiversity. But anyway, so I'm very proud when you see runners running, a lot of running for human causes, which is great and very personal. But for our runners, having the elephant on their shirt, you know, it really stands out. And people say, Oh, we had a little kid, right? Because we were at this on the side sidelines in New York City for the marathon with a big sign Team Elephant and the elephant. But a little boy came up to you because he said, Mom, Mom, I want dad to run for elephants next.

SPEAKER_01 53:12

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 53:13

So I think a lot of people choose our team because they look at, oh, which charity can I run for? And they see all the logos and then they see the elephant and it really stands out. So they they're actually uh choosing definitely to run for nature. So we have hundreds of people around the world doing that. And then, of course, a really direct way to come and help is to volunteer, which speaks to the roots of our story and it changed John's life. It changes many people's lives too. If you have the ability to do so to sign up, come volunteer. Our volunteer programs are two weeks long. You stay at the reserve. It's not like bunk beds and I think a lot of people think of volunteering as kind of this student-like activity. Trips are definitely in the middle between like very comfortable.

SPEAKER_03 53:58

It's the best food you will ever eat in your entire life. I'm still dreaming about Lucky's food.

SPEAKER_00 54:04

Oh, we have the best Zulu chef ever. Lucky is amazing. And yeah, so it's great food, very comfortable accommodation. You have your own like bedroom and bathroom. Maybe you share with one person, but it's a mix of sort of ecotourism. Like you get to see the site. You can't come all the way to South Africa and then only see our reserve. And we have partners, so you go visit partner reserves, see the Rhino orphanage, go to the World Heritage Wetlands, see the beach, have a beach day. So it's really a kind of vacation that's giving back to nature in many ways. But you get hands-on and you feel like-I mean, you could attest to this more than me, Diane, but like that you feel like part of the team. You're working alongside the reachers, you're working alongside the green mumbers, but it's also very educational because you're learning about their jobs and about what it takes to restore habitat.

SPEAKER_01 54:57

Which goes to one of our core missions is to rewild ourselves. We can rewild the planet, but we also need to rewild ourselves. And there's no better place than being on the ground with us in South Africa to begin that rewilding journey. So yeah. Yeah, we please, if you'd love to come, we'd love to have you.

SPEAKER_00 55:20

Or if you're a children's book creator, sign up with the CBCC group. Such an amazing group of people. Like I variously live through our social posts when you guys are out there. Like, imagine like these amazing artists and creators and writers, like, you know, on top of the there was this one trip where they're on top of the big truck that had the Z.

SPEAKER_03 55:44

I actually just had Candy Fleming on the podcast because she had such an amazing year this year with all of the awards. And we spent half our podcast talking about Wild Tomorrow and the work that she's doing, and the work that we both love, but her current book, which is all about poaching, and that was born out of her trip. She went the time before I did, but that love and that desire to tell the story of the rhinos and the complexities of the poaching story is emerging in her next book. Very excited about that.

SPEAKER_01 56:17

And then another way that if people would like to be a part of WAB tomorrow is to attend one of our events. Most are on the East Coast, based around the New York City area, but we have a very nice gala at the end of the year. We have spin events, we have a comedy night.

SPEAKER_00 56:35

So and this year, we're very excited. In April, we're doing, although it might be we're gonna hopefully it's every April. It's new this year pause against poaching. So getting people who have their beloved family pet dog to to walk, do a virtual dog walk to raise money to help the cane. So these are the dogs that are working and work with their rangers to protect rhino specifically in these wildlife reserves. And they'll they're, you know, as a team, they're very underfunded. The first year we asked them what they needed, just write a list small to big. And on the small end was like those canvas dog bowls. So when they're out patrolling or on, you know, working with the dogs in a nature reserve that they have these portable water bowls so they can give their dogs water. So it was, it's we're very excited. Just the idea, you know, in New York City we've got pampered pups you see, especially in winter, with their little shoes on and their jackets, and they've got multiple jackets of different fashion, you know, but to take have those dogs, you know, of course, they're human behind them, walking in solidarity kind of with the working dogs, the canines of South Africa that that work really hard and actually risk their lives to these dogs to try to save rhinos and protect their rangers. Like right. I was talking to one of those rangers, he was saying how much, first of all, you see the bond they have with their dog, but they actually put their life as well in the the dog when they're deploying, it's usually nighttime when poachers come to the reserve to try to kill a rhino. And the dogs deployed. Imagine, can you imagine running in a wildlife reserve that has rhinos, elephants, you know, dangerous animals? And it's nighttime. So what I didn't realize, not only is the dog on the trail of the poacher using their nose, it's also aware of wildlife around them. So it will take the ranger, they will go obviously on a path away from danger on their way to danger, which is trying to find a poacher. So that just blew my mind. So these dogs, you know, are just so incredible to watch, and they love the rangers, and the rangers love them, and they actually really are just so bonded. So to be able to support them, I think, is wonderful, and to get the dog lovers involved, but it also raises awareness. Like we forget that people don't know why rhinos are getting killed and and the role of rangers.

SPEAKER_03 58:55

So, one last question for you all, and it gets back to what we talked about at the beginning. What currently brings you hope? You want to go first, John?

SPEAKER_01 59:06

That that in ten years we have gone from my mum and dad giving money, Wendy's sister, to now having thousands of people. I mean, it's not thousands of people, but you know, yes, thousands of people interested and interested in what we say and ready to give their personal time or their talents or their money to help get to where we are going. That's what gives me hope because we we honestly feel quite a lot of the time people say, wow, I can't believe ten years what you've done. We feel like we've done nothing. It's for other people if they would like to say yes. And maybe one day of the year we'll celebrate ourselves. Or what tomorrow. But we've barely started. And there is no there's no I know that those few thousand that we have now will turn into multiple thousands because I know the care is out there.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:08

Absolutely. And for me, truly a symbol of hope is seeing new animals, little babies fawn at Ukuwela in the greater Ukuwela Nature Reserve. The giraffe are definitely one of my favorite, but just know it to me, it is so symbolic of what we're trying of the work that we're doing to take degraded farmland and restore it to nature and for it to be a place where wildlife is thriving. The giraffes are thriving. We have babies born every year. And to see that, and I was thinking about when we first went to see the land and when it, you know, we first started our habitat protection work. We never saw warthog, just they weren't warthog at Ukulela. Very rare. Now, when you go, you see them all the time, and I love them the little stuff. They're amazing. Families, like that to me is hope. And it represents the idea that we can, as individuals, create this beautiful change. It seems like an impossible dream. Like who would think you could create, you know, create this extra, take space back for wildlife and and see nature return. And it's very possible, it's like that regeneration. So that is the hope that I see, and that the people around us and part of the Wild Tomorrow community are feeling that too. Because if we all give up hope and we are just despairing of nature and the destruction and the gloom and doom that is absolutely around us every day, then that's the kind of, yeah, we're not going to solve it. But if we can see that we can make a difference, what I say, hope is taking action and really see as an individual the impact that we're we can make. Yeah, I think that's the future. And doing it locally, small scale, kind of creates something much bigger.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:48

Well, and thank you for creating a vehicle for us to actively live in hope and do something about it too. Oh, thank you so much, Diane.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:56

And thank you for having us so that our having more about your listeners.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:02

You've been listening to the Adventures in Learning podcast with your host, Dr. Diane. If you like what you're hearing, please subscribe, download, and let us know what you think, and please tell a friend. If you want the full show notes and the pictures, please go to drdianeadventures.com. We look forward to you joining us on our next adventure.