Durban adventurer returns after conservation mission
Carla Geyser has returned home following a 50-day all-women conservation SOS mission to Africa.
AFTER 50 days, covering four countries and 11 235km, Durban humanitarian and eco-warrior, Carla Geyser, has returned home having led a successful international all-women conservation mission into Southern Africa.
Geyser’s Journeys with Purpose: The Rise of the Matriarch expedition spanned South Africa, Zimbabwe, Botswana and Namibia, and attracted 12 women from around the world.
“Mama Africa takes your breath away with her magnificent sunsets and sunrises, leaves you speechless at her amazing wildlife and her boundless energy, and reawakens emotions that you thought had long-since disappeared. Yet, amid all this splendour, there is a sad, ugly reality – a festering wound of poaching, over-population, poverty and human-wildlife conflict,” said Geyser.
The figures are alarming – poachers kill approximately two rangers every week in Africa. They also kill on average three rhinos, 98 elephant and countless pangolin every single day. It is this harsh cold reality that spurred Geyser into action.
“For most people on our planet, disaster on this scale is overwhelming so they resign themselves to shake their heads in dismay and leave the job of saving our people and wildlife to someone else. I have learned over the last few years that we simply cannot rely on ‘the other person’ or the next generation to take up the fight, it has to be us and it has to be now; we simply don’t have the time. And 12 brave women from around the world felt just as strongly as I do to leave the comfort of their homes and journey with me to make a difference,” explained Geyser.
READ RELATED: Durban conservationist gears up for expedition
The group of “eco she-roes” included eight South Africans and four Americans. The eco-adventure kicked off from South Africa on 16 September, under the banner of Geyser’s NPO, the Blue Sky Society Trust. The mission had four distinct goals – to raise global awareness about the contentious human-wildlife conflict issue, to educate the youth about conservation, to support local empowerment efforts targeting young women from localised, rural communities, and to raise funds for four wildlife conservation bodies, namely Elephants Alive (South Africa), Rare and Endangered Species Trust (Namibia), Eco-Exist Project (Botswana) and the Soft Foot Alliance Trust (Zimbabwe).
In the seven weeks that followed, Geyser and her crew, distributed 30 000 educational booklets, visited 13 on-the-ground conservation projects and met 16 phenomenal women who are doing incredible conservation work at a grassroots level.
“So many lifelong memories were made on the journey, but a few stand out more than others. Meeting the world-famous Black Mamba Anti-Poaching Unit here in SA is one of my favourites. This elite group made up of 33 women protects the boundaries of the 52, 000ha Balule Nature Reserve, which is part of the Greater Kruger National Park. As proud defenders of our wildlife, these women are incredible role-models, and they are mothers, sisters, wives and future grandmothers too,” explained Geyser.
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