The Origins Foundation has developed a global fingerprint and we need to expand our voice to match our influence. To this end our Field Correspondents are sustainable use advocates from Pakistan to Wisconsin, practitioners who bring firsthand experience to sustainable use. Field correspondents report in their own words from the realities of managing wildlife populations to the results regulated hunting makes possible. Their dispatches complement the Origins Foundation’s own conservation work, demonstrating sustainable hunting and wildlife management in action.
Veer Supunya Devavrata – India
Veer Supunya Devavrata is an indian conservationist, filmmaker and founder of wild origins India. He works at the intersection of human wildlife conflict, sustainable use and conservation storytelling. His work spans field based conservation in India, documentary filmmaking and international wildlife policy, with a particular focus on the communities that live alongside wildlife. He is a member of the IUCN Species Survival Commission and Sustinable Use and Livelihoods Specialist Group – and serves as an international policy advisor to IWMC World Conservation Trust. His first feature documentary- Prey to the wild – explores the human realities of living alongside recovering populations of large carnivores in India.
Kristie Gill – Georgia, USA – South Africa
Kristie Gill is a Ph.D. candidate in the University of Georgia’s Integrative Conservation program, studying the role of private game reserves in supporting landscape connectivity for naturally occurring wildlife species and natural resource access for local communities within South Africa’s Waterberg Biosphere. She is a U.S. Air Force veteran, bringing an unconventional background to the field of conservation. She currently resides in Athens, Georgia, with her partner Stephen, their three dogs, and her horse, Rook, when she isn’t conducting fieldwork in the South African bush.
Maria Hashmi – Pakistan
Maria Hashmi is a National Geographic Explorer and the founder of Little Rebels Nature Camp, a conservation education initiative using experiential learning to foster empathy for wildlife among young people in Pakistan. Through her work, she designs community-centred education programmes that connect children with nature and help communities living alongside wildlife build more positive relationships with the natural world.
Olivia Lappin – Wisconsin, USA
Olivia Lappin is a wildlife biologist passionate about conserving wildlife through habitat restoration, science, and public education. Originally from Maine, she now lives in Wisconsin. However, she doesn’t stay put in one place for very long. She earned her bachelor’s degree from the University of Maine and her master’s degree from Mississippi State University, building experience across the country working with a wide variety of wildlife species and ecosystems. Her work focuses on helping landowners and conservation partners create healthy, resilient habitats that benefit wildlife for generations to come.
Stuart Anderson Wheeler – Tanzania
Stuart Anderson Wheeler is a seasoned field correspondent, professional hunter, and East African safari specialist with more than two decades of experience operating in some of Africa’s most remote and demanding wilderness areas. Based between London and Zanzibar, Tanzania, today, Stuart continues to bridge the worlds of conservation, safari, business and international affairs, drawing on a lifetime of experience in the African bush to deliver informed, compelling and credible reporting from the field.
Mette Karin Schwaner – Denmark
Mette Karin Schwaner is the Danish hunter behind @jaegerinden_, where she shows followers where meat actually comes from, from the forest to her family’s table. A hunting mom raising her kids on wild food, she has reached millions by butchering and cooking game in the middle of Copenhagen and calmly answering the questions most people are afraid to ask. Through her field-to-fork workshops and talks, she helps people reconnect with the food on their plate: one deer, one meal, one honest conversation at a time.
Lame Bogatsu – Botswana
Lame Bogatsu is a Botswana-based journalist, storyteller and communications professional with more than 15 years of experience in journalism and strategic communication, reporting on conservation, tourism, community livelihoods and the complex relationship between people and wildlife. Based in Botswana and currently pursuing a Master of Arts in Media and Communication, Lame continues to bridge the worlds of conservation governance, human-wildlife coexistence and rural life, drawing on years of reporting from some of the country’s most remote communities to deliver deeply human, people-centred stories from the field.
