The Team

Honorary Patrons

• President João Lourenço

  (Angola)

• His Majesty King Letsie III

  (Lesotho)

• President Lazarus McCarthy Chakwera

  (Malawi)

• President Filipe Nyusi

  (Mozambique)

• President Hage Geingob

  (Namibia)

• His Majesty King Mswati III

  (Eswatini)

• President Hakainde Hichilema

  (Zambia)

Board of Directors

• Mr JP Rupert

  (Chairman)

• Mr JA Chissano

  (Vice-Chairman)

• Mr W Myburgh

  (Chief Executive Officer)

• Mr TA Boardman

• Mr NN de Villiers

  (Member only)

• Mr A Hoffmann

  (Switzerland)

• Mr HN Döman

• Prof. A Leiman

• Mr EN Isdell

  (Ireland)

• Mr JS Loftie-Eaton

• Drs JHW Loudon

  (The Netherlands)

• Ms LM Lynch

• Mr M Msimang

• Dr FE Raimondo

• Ms CC Rupert

• Mr DF Strietman

  (The Netherlands)

• Senior Chief Inyambo Yeta

  (Zambia)

Senior Management

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  Werner Myburgh

  Chief Executive Officer

  Born in 1973 in Johannesburg, South Africa. As a young man, Werner was already active as an enthusiast of anything to do with nature and conservation. He enrolled for B.Sc. Hon. in Ecology in 1991 and every holiday volunteered in Kruger National Park. In 1996, he took a gap year and travelled through southern Africa whereafter he took up an assignment in 1998 with the newly created Peace Parks Foundation.

  He served in various capacities at the Foundation before being appointed as Chief Executive Officer in 2008. The Foundation and its subsidiaries has 151 full time staff members and an annual average budget of $30 million whilst keeping the average annual running costs of the Foundation at below 14% of total budget for the past five years. He has been involved in the execution of more than 500 different development projects within Transfrontier Conservation Areas (TFCAs) throughout southern Africa and was part of the team responsible for facilitating the establishment of the Kgalagadi, Great Limpopo, /Ai/Ais-Richtersveld, Kavango-Zambezi and Malawi-Zambia transfrontier conservation areas, as well as development of the Greater Mapungubwe and Maloti-Drakensberg TFCAs. Collectively these areas span over one million square kilometers of conservation estate that arguably now have become the largest terrestrial conservation movement in the world.

  Werner is a Board and Executive Committee Member of Peace Parks Foundation and also serves on the Boards of the SA College for Tourism, Southern African Wildlife College (both Peace Parks Foundation subsidiaries), Southern African Wildlife College Trust; and is a Member of the Steering Committees of the Limpopo National Park, the Maputo Special Reserve and the Zinave National Park. He also serves on two of the five Boards of Charitable Entities of Peace Parks Foundation, namely Germany and the USA. The other three being in Sweden, Switzerland and the UK.

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  Antony Alexander

  Senior Project Manager

  Antony joined Peace Parks in 2010 in the position of Project Manager for the development of Limpopo National Park (Mozambique) focusing primarily on including resettlement, community, anti-poaching and infrastructure programmes. In 2017 with the expansion of Peace Parks Mozambique portfolio he has subsequently filled the position of Senior Project Manager based in Maputo, Mozambique where he is responsible for the operations and development support by Peace Parks in Maputo Special Reserve and Ponta do Ouro Partial Marine Reserve as part of the Lubombo TFCA and of Banhine, Limpopo and Zinave National Parks as part of the Great Limpopo TFCA.

  His qualifications include a BSc (Civil Engineering) and a BComm degrees and his career to date has over 20 years operational and project management experience throughout Southern and West Africa as well as South East Asia primarily in the Oil and Gas and Engineering construction sectors for a variety of European and African based clientele.

  Regular exposure and interest in conservation since a young age provided Antony with a sound foundation and passion to transfer these skills and experiences to the conservation sector.

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  Lize-Mari Lynch

  Chief Financial Officer

  As Chief Financial Officer of Peace Parks Foundation, Lize is responsible for all finance and corporate governance matters. Lize comes from an auditing and banking background. After finishing her Bachelors in accounting degree at the University of Stellenbosch in 2000, she continued her training at PwC in Stellenbosch whilst finishing her Honours in Accounting through Unisa. She qualified as a chartered accountant in 2005 and went to Guernsey, Channel Islands to obtain international experience. Credit Suisse (Guernsey) Ltd offered her a permanent position in their accounting department, where she stayed for 4 years and from where she moved to Peace Parks Foundation.

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  Prof Andrew Nambota

  Regional Manager

  Professor Andrew Nambota is the Peace Parks Foundation Regional Manager based at the Zambia Office. From 2012 – mid 2018 Professor Nambota was the Director of the Transfrontier Conservation Areas (TFCA) Unit based at the Ministry of Tourism and Arts in Lusaka, Zambia. He coordinated the collaboration with the Government of Zambia and it’s institutions regarding TFCA development involving Zambia. Zambia is a partner to five TFCAs (Liuwa Plains-Mussuma, Kavango- Zambezi, Lower Zambezi-Mana Pools, ZIMOZA and Malawi-Zambia). Prof. Nambota holds a Master’s Degree in Veterinary Medicine and before joining Peace Parks Foundation, was Dean of The School of Veterinary Medicine at the University of Zambia.

  He has over the years acquired experience in dealing with local communities in relation to natural resource management. His work emphasizes active participation and beneficiation of local communities through the promotion of wildlife and tourism economies. He is a strong advocate of community based natural resource management and responsible tourism as vehicles for meaningful community empowerment.

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  Colin Porteous

  Chief Investment Officer

  Colin Porteous is a highly experienced investment professional, with a passion for conservation and social impact – endeavouring to make conservation a commercially attractive asset class.

  Colin was born in Johannesburg and grew up spending as much time as possible in nature. He obtained his honours in Finance and a post graduate diploma in Accounting from the University of Cape Town. He specialised in Financial Institutions with Deloitte, was seconded to Luxembourg and Sydney, and travelled widely.

  He has extensive Treasury experience with one of the market leading investment banks in South Africa, Rand Merchant Bank and worked across multiple African jurisdictions in the Fixed Income, Currency and Commodities space.

  His experience includes ten years in the private investment industry, executing deals in, and managing a portfolio comprising of, assets in infrastructure, financial services, engineering, information technology, mining and agriculture, using various structured finance mechanisms across South Africa, Ghana, Nigeria, Botswana, Hungary, Poland, UK and the Netherlands. This includes both buy and sell-side experience and Colin has actively served on boards and management committees of the portfolio assets.

  He decided to utilise his passion for nature and his investment experience to find the nexus between conservation and commerce and joined Peace Parks in 2020.

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  Brad Poole

  Chief Operating Officer

  Brad has been working in the environmental and conservation sector for the more than 20 years and has accumulated vast experience in the development and implementation of a diverse suite of conservation, nature-based tourism and social development programmes.

  His qualifications include a Diploma in Financial Information Systems and Diploma in Advanced Project Management. His skills are centred on programme/project design, contract development and implementation of multi-disciplinary programmes involving stakeholders across the public and private sector.

  Brad has previously served as the Partnership and Programmes Director within Ezemvelo KwaZulu-Natal Wildlife and spearheaded a vast portfolio of conservation, commercial and social development initiatives on behalf of the provincial conservation management authority working closely with government and private sector to structure public private partnerships.

  He started at Peace Parks Foundation as a technical advisor in 2008 and has been instrumental in helping the Foundation mobilise new programmes such as the Community Development Facility in Mozambique. In 2015 was appointed as head of the Foundation’s Combatting Wildlife Crime programme and now serves as Chief Operations Officer for this leading conservation NGO.

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  Dr Bartolomeu Soto

  Regional Manager

  Dr Soto has a Masters in Environment and Development (University of Kwazulo Natal), BSc in Wildlife Diseases (University of Pretoria) and Degree in Veterinary Medicine (Universidade Eduardo Mondlane). He has 28 years of experience in the management and development of conservation areas, national parks, wildlife, natural resources and environmental management, of which the last 26 years have been spent in technical leadership and project management.

  He was Head of Department of Fauna Bravia (1993) in the National Directorate of Forests and Wildlife and later Coordinator of the Transboundary Conservation Areas Project in the Ministry of Agriculture until the year 2000.

  From then on he worked in the Ministry of Tourism and held the position of Coordinator of the Transfrontier Conservation Areas (TFCA) Project and National Director of Conservation Areas (this one for accumulation between 2006 – 2008).

  As of 2009, Dr Soto only remained as TFCA Project Coordinator until his departure for SADC in June 2013. In SADC, based in Gaborone, from 2013 to 2014, he was the Technical Advisor for the Transfrontier Conservation Areas of the region.

  In August 2014 he returned to Mozambique to hold the position of General Director of the National Administration of Conservation Areas in the Ministry of Land, Environment and Rural Development.

  Dr Soto joined the Peace Parks Foundation in 2018 where he now serves as technical adviser with regards to matters pertaining to transfrontier conservation in Mozambique.

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  Lilian Spijkerman

  Chief Development Officer

  Lilian is a seasoned fundraiser and communicator driven by a passion for nature and people.

  Born and raised in the Netherlands and trained as an Environmental Engineer and Physical Geographer, she spent much of her initial career in remote areas in the Amazon, the Andes and the Philippines. Her 20-year journey working in nature conservation and sustainable development has been focused on institution building, design and management of multi-country initiatives, public sector finance, blended finance and financing solutions for remote areas and communities.

  Lilian’s extensive experience includes successfully setting up accredited entities for the Global Environment Facility and the Green Climate Fund, connecting funding at scale to programs that deliver clear impacts, and leading complex processes in multicultural settings throughout Asia, Africa and Latin America.

  She joined Peace Parks Foundation in November 2021 with the objective of applying her extensive skills and experience to connect Peace Parks’ scalable successes to funders looking for transformative impact.

Management

• Lésa Van Rooyen

  Marketing, Communications & Branding
• Kate Ohlhoff

  Resource Development
• Wayne Brider

  Information and Communication Technology
• Siewert Groenewald

  Commercial and Financial Portfolio
• Ken Maggs

  Counter Poaching Unit Manager
• Steven Matema

  Community Programme Manager
• Tumelo Matjekane

  Manager: Combatting Wildlife Crime
• Humphrey Nzima

  Country Representative: Malawi
• Bernard van Lente

  Project Manager: Zinave National Park
• Stefan van Zyl

  Project Systems and Compliance Manager

Advisory Committee

This committee brings together representatives from the wildlife authorities of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) member states to assist, in an ex officio capacity, with technical advice in the transfrontier conservation process and provide a forum for discussion of cross-border challenges.

• Mr Stanley Damane

  Director, Ministry of Tourism, Environment and Culture, Lesotho

• Mr Isaac D. Katopola

  Principal Secretary, Ministry of Natural Resources, Energy and Mining, Malawi

• Mr Brighton Kumchedwa

  Director, National Parks and Wildlife, Malawi

• Mr Rui Lisboa

  Chairman of the Board, National Agency of the Okavango Region, Angola

• Ms Skumsa Mancotywa

  Chief Director, Biodiversity and Conservation, Department of Environment, Forestry and Fisheries, South Africa

• Dr Fulton Mangwanya

  Director General, Parks & Wildlife Management Authority, Zimbabwe

• Dr Themba Mhlongo

  Deputy Executive Secretary, Regional Integration, SADC Secretariat

• Mr Fundisile Mketeni

  Chief Executive Officer, South African National Parks, South Africa

• Mr Munesushe Munodawafa

  Permanent Secretary, Ministry for Environment, Tourism and Hospitality Industry, Zimbabwe

• Dr Albertina Nzuzi

  Director General, The National Institute for Biodiversity and Protected Areas, Angola

• Dr Auxilia Bupe Ponga

  Permanent Secretary, Ministry  of Tourism and Arts, Zambia

• Mr Teofilus Nghitila

  Executive Director, Ministry of Environment and Tourism, Namibia

• Mr Hlobsile Sikhosana

  Acting CEO, Eswatini National Trust Commission, Eswatini

• Mr Colgar Sikopo

  Director, Directorate of Regional Services and Parks Management, Namibia

• Dr Chuma Simukonda 

  Director, Department of National Parks and Wildlife, Zambia