Wilderness Training

The Wilderness Foundation UK offers a number of options for people to enhance their learning and understanding of the value of wilderness and wild places, ranging from Wilderness Training Courses covering days in Scotland or Africa through to stand-alone one day seminars and workshops.

Detailed here some of the options that are open to individuals, groups and members of the Foundation to experience their environment in a way which may change their outlook and understanding of the world around them.

The best means of preserving wilderness is to give people direct experience of it. The Wilderness Foundation organises a range of trails in wild places, both overseas and in the more remote parts of Britain.

Wilderness Training Course

Background

Almost fifty years ago Dr Ian Player and Maqubu Ntombela took the first group of students from St Johns College out on trail in iMfolozi Game Reserve. That started the magnificent journey that has been the Wilderness Leadership School’s legacy to almost 40 000 trailists.
People from all over the world have continued to experience this journey of self-discovery coupled with the adrenalin filled opportunity to observe and participate in nature on foot.

THE MISSION

To bring about a realization of the interdependence of all things, especially between the human and the non-human elements of the earth.
We believe that we can bring about such a shift in consciousness by exposing people to a direct experience of wilderness.

“I went to the woods because I wanted to live deliberately to front only the essential facts of life and see if I could not learn what it had to teach and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.” - Henry David Thoreau

The Course

The Course is conducted according to the Wilderness Leadership School’s ethos and emphasizes mans interdependence with nature.
The Course is a values driven introduction to wilderness and the underpinning ethics involved. Our aim at the School is to ensure that all students leave with an innate understanding of Wilderness and the part it has to play in our future. The instructors are all full wilderness trails guides passionately dedicated to preserving our natural environment and wilderness areas.

• A wilderness training course is a physical, mental and spiritual experience during which time the participants are given the opportunity to re-examine life’s priorities and experience personal growth.
• Conducted in the Kenneth Stainbank Nature Reserve, the Hluhluwe-iMfolozi Game Reserve, the Greater St Lucia Wetland Park (Heritage site) and the Ukhahlamba-Drakensberg Park depending on the time of year.
• Facilitated by world class wilderness trails guides with many years experience in the philosophical and ethical objective of the WLS as well as an intimate knowledge of the flora and fauna of the Wilderness in which they operate.
• Journeys of discovery providing an opportunity for groups to bond and for individual personal growth experiences.
• Catered for and equipped by the Wilderness Leadership School.
• Conducted with the highest attention given to the safety and security of the students.

Course Content

Designed and customized by the Wilderness Leadership School instructors themselves the course content includes the following modules and disciplines:

- Animal Identification and Behavioral Interpretation
- Bush Lore and Tracking Skills
- Environmental Literacy
- The Nature of Wilderness
- Personal Growth Development
- Minimal Impact Camping Skills and Techniques
- Trail Mechanics
- Interpretation of Landscapes and Earth Sciences
- Individual Leadership Development
- Group Dynamics and Assessment
- Environmental Responsibility and Accountability
- Emergency First Aid and HIV Awareness

The whole course is delivered with an underlying emphasis on Wilderness Ethics which is the core of the Wilderness Leadership Schools philosophy.

Cost

R 13 000-00 per Student per course including VAT. Excludes flights to South Africa.

Included:

• All food
• Accommodation
• Tuition
• Transport to and from Game Reserves
• Two 5 day Wilderness Trails (Value R7500-00)
• Use of Trails Equipment
• Theta Assessment
• Wilderness Leadership School Certificate

Please contact our office if you’d like to learn more or book a place .

The Centre for Human Ecology

The Centre for Human Ecology is an independent, engaged think-tank. They work with people at the sharp end of ecological and social action to effect practical change and develop new thinking that influences local, national and international policy and practice for ecological sustainability and social justice.

The Centre offers a number of options to study in this valuable and interesting area:

MSc in Human Ecology

Human Ecology uncovers and investigates the connections between personal action, social, industrial and agricultural systems and our planet’s ecology.

Sustaining Ecosystems

Ecosystems regulate and maintain the conditions on earth suitable for life, providing us with oxygen, food, water and other resources. They are also essential to our cultural and social experience. Never before has our impact on ecosystems been greater. The dilemma? How do we sustain the ecosystems that sustain us?

Ecopsychology

A new interdiscipline examining the interface between ecology and psychology. Our constantly changing society, its new technologies and timescales, underscore our daily lives. How can psychology help us understand environmental crises? What links psychology with ecology?

Action Research

Action Research helps people deepen their learing about questions they feel passionate about. Research with others, not on them!

*      Learn-by-doing whilst engaging with inspiring articles and papers;
*      Enhance your leadership, facilitation and research skills;
*      Slow down, go further: develop awareness practices in your life and work.

To learn more about studying with the CHE visit their website: www.che.ac.uk Please remember to mention The Wilderness Foundation UK when contacting them.