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Dr. Chris Brooks Dr Chris Brooks is an associate researcher at the University of Bristol and completed his PhD on the foraging ecology of the migratory zebra population in the Makgadikgadi Pans. He has lived in Botswana for 9 years and has a long-standing association with the University of Botswana’s Harry Oppenheimer Okavango Research Centre (HOORC) and the Department of Wildlife and National Parks (DWNP). Before he established a PhD research project in the Makgadikgadi, he spent 4 years working as a safari guide, working within most of the National Parks and Game Reserves within Botswana. He occasionally still takes out safaris, but only on special request. He has extensive knowledge and experience in conducting ecological monitoring and scientific research on human-wildlife conflict, range ecology and management, water quality, animal behaviour, herbivore foraging strategies and has conducted numerous community appraisals within the field of human-wildlife conflict. He is currently involved with continuing the Makgadikgadi zebra research project and establishing a project on Cape buffalo movement within the Delta, while supervising PhD research projects on the herbivore guild structure of the Okavango Delta and the foraging ecology of Brown Hyaenas in the Makgadikgadi.
Dr. Mpaphi Casper Bonyongo Dr Bonyongo is a Research Fellow and head of the Ecosystems Management Unit at the University of Botswana’s HOORC. He has been actively involved in environmental research within northern Botswana for the past 15 years and has conducted research on wildlife management, human-wildlife conflict, range ecology and sustainable use and conflict issues. He is a member of the executive committee at HOORC and has been actively involved in supervising consultancy reviews for the Okavango Delta Management Plan (ODMP) and in the set up of the Biodiversity Project, while also co-ordinating the environmental monitoring of the tsetse fly eradication project in Kwando-Zambezi. He is currently supervising PhD and MSc research projects on human-elephant conflict in the pan-handle, herbivore dynamics within Moremi Game Reserve and the Meyer’s parrot within the Okavango Delta, while also taking a leading role in establishing a Cape buffalo project within the Delta.
Vince Shacks Vince Shacks completed his Honours degree in GIS specializing in Spatial Analysis and Decision Making at the University of Stellenbosch, South Africa. The programme focused on environmental management and covered various procedures such as Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA), Strategic Environmental Assessments (SEA) and Environmental Management Plans (EMP). In 2004 he joined the Okavango Crocodile Research team based in the Delta’s pan handle, to carry out his Masters degree in Environmental Studies. His Masters thesis was titled Habitat Vulnerability of Nile Crocodiles in the Okavango Panhandle. While conducting his Masters he assessed human / land use interactions thereby contributing to a better understanding of regional and habitat vulnerability. In 2006 he joined Services for Geo-Information (SGI) based in Maun. As the GIS project manager he took the lead in project development, implementing GIS projects and supporting government agencies and the private sector throughout Botswana. He has gained extensive experience in software packages such as Idrisi32, ArcView3.2, Arc9 as well as being involved with spatial analyses projects across the entire northern Botswana area.
Thoralf Meyer (MSc) Thoralf Meyer has worked in association with the HOORC since 1998, acting as a Geographic Information Systems (GIS) consultant and project manager. He has extensive experience in the use of geographic and remote sensing applications as tool to support decision making. He has worked on a broad range of social and environmental projects such as the Slaty Egret Project for Birdlife Botswana, Elephant habitat mapping for Conservation International, and the Water and Ecosystem Resources funded by the European Commission, while providing scientific and data management support for most of the independent researchers and several of the Government Departments within Botswana. He has provided capacity building and training exercises in remote sensing and GIS research support to many government agencies, private companies and international institutions, such as HOORC, DWNP, ODMP, Max Planc, University of Virginia, University of Texas, University of Stellenbosh and Anhalt University of Applied Sciences. He is currently under taking a PhD on the temporal transition of habitat types and vegetation within the Okavango Delta as part of the Biodiversity Project through the University of Virginia, UAS. |
