Rhoda McGivern

South African born Rhoda has had an interest in wildlife and the outdoors since an early age. Throughout her childhood in South Africa and in the UK she spent many hours with her father exploring and learning about everything from wild food to how to handle lion cubs!

Passionate about wildlife Rhoda studied zoological conservation management at university. This period of study rekindled her childhood love for tracking and the outdoors. Rhoda began to build on her skills started to work as a wildlife tracking instructor. She has worked alongside many organisations and is often called upon to run workshops and courses in the UK and abroad.

Rhoda is passionate about passing on her knowledge gained from many different sources and cultures as well as countless hours of practise. She integrates Eastern philosophies into her teachings of nature awareness and is fascinated by the similarities between her own studies in yoga, meditation and connecting to nature, and the philosophies of other ancient cultures worldwide.

Rhoda is an adventurer at heart, happiest when travelling to far-flung corners of the globe, meeting fascinating indigenous people and exploring remote environments.

Rhoda is in the process of setting up the Indigenous Cultures Foundation with other key members of the Worldwild team, a non-profit organisation that assists tribes around the world by providing them with a means to maintain their cultural identity, whilst earning a living for themselves.

She has also worked tirelessly in setting up the Horse Boy Camps for children on the autistic spectrum and is honoured to have the opportunity to work with these truly inspirational kids regularly.

Rhoda has recently been sponsored by Finisterre technical clothing and is incredibly grateful for their support and enthusiasm.

Angie Nash

An adventurer and explorer, Angie is passionate about reinforcing the ancient knowledge of tracking and is involved with various organisations in developing techniques that allow native people to use traditional methodology to monitor the local wildlife, without the need for invasive scientific methods. She has used tracking as a scientific tool in many elements of her field research into wildlife populations and conservation and is using it to build the bridges that occur with animal/human conflicts. She lectures part time on a BSc Zoological Conservation course and has written a Cert HE Zoological Expeditions course.

Most recently she has been working in the Canadian Arctic tracking polar bear and identifying individuals from their tracks to estimate minimum numbers. She has also tracked orang-utan through the jungles of Borneo and has worked throughout Africa where she earned the nickname ‘jungle queen’ for her ability to work closely with nature looking for tracks and sign of mammal populations to predict population estimates.

Whilst travelling to these remote areas, Angie has formed close bonds with the cultures and communities she has worked with and in return has set up the Indigenous Cultures Foundation alongside other members of the Worldwild team to try and give something back.

Angie has been working hard on developing and running the Horseboy camps and with a great UK and US based Worldwild team, is really proud to be part of something so incredible. She is now involved in exploring other concepts of alternative therapy for children on the autism spectrum, including surf camps.

Living and working in Cornwall, where she is on the committee for the Cornwall Mammal Group, Angie enjoys camping out in natural shelters and spending many an early hour finding and following the tracks of wild animals. Every year she returns to the French Pyrenees where she has been tracking the elusive and rare brown bear, and uses her bushcraft skills to live comfortably in each area that she travels to.

 

Justin Telford

Justin has been involved in the outdoors since the mid-seventies when he was first introduced to backpacking. During the eighties and early-nineties, he was involved with several projects, teaching orienteering for the Duke of Edinburgh Award Scheme, running outdoor activities for a local youth group, and single pitch climbing. During that time, he also developed a keen interest in survival techniques and has put them into practice in a variety of terrains and conditions.

With the introduction of Bushcraft, Justin started to move his interests from 'survival' to 'sustainable living', and is now an advocate of the bushcraft doctrine of living with nature rather than trying to 'beat' it.

Justin's particular interest is in 'Wild Food', everything from foraging, to hunting and trapping, an essential part of survival and bushcraft.

Most recently, Justin was part of the team involved in the 'Horse Boy' camps, due to his instant rappor with children (some might suggest he never grew up himself), and easy nature around horses. He was also responsible for introducing the children to foraged fruit and greens as a way of getting them to eat a more healthy diet.

Steve 'Curly' Patterson

Steve Patterson's profile will be up as soon as he writes it!