STEVE BOYES

National Geographic Explorer Steve Boyes has dedicated his life to conserving Africa’s wilderness areas and the species that depend on them through innovative and integrative methods. In 2015, Boyes launched the National Geographic Okavango Wilderness Project, a multiyear effort to explore and protect the little-known wilderness of the Angolan Highlands that provides over 95% of the water that sustains the Okavango Delta and the biodiversity of the greater Kavango Zambezi Transfrontier Conservation Area. His team’s efforts to advance scientific research, scale conservation efforts, and preserve traditional knowledge are supported by the Okavango Eternal partnership between the National Geographic Society and the De Beers Group. He is the founder and chairman of the Wild Bird Trust and The Wilderness Project, and a senior research fellow at the FitzPatrick Institute of African Ornithology (University of Cape Town). Boyes is also an author, TED speaker and storyteller. His films, “Into the Okavango” and “Ghost Elephants,” reveal the importance of vital ecosystems and the people, wildlife and biodiversity they nourish.