Samantha Williams completed her Master’s degree (Development Studies) at the University of the Western Cape in 2005. Her thesis focussed on the contribution of wild ‘buchu’ (Agathosma betulina) to the livelihoods of local harvesters in the Cederberg region, Western Cape. In September 2005, Samantha joined the Environmental Evaluation Unit (EEU) at the University of Cape Town (UCT) where she worked on various projects which included research on coastal and fisheries governance, biodiversity and social justice and environmental management and sustainability. In 2008, Samantha enrolled full time for a doctoral degree at UCT. Her research focuses on access and the social dynamics of fisheries and coastal resources in community livelihoods (Western Cape) using a case study approach. Samantha’s core focus since commencing with her doctoral degree has been on fisher livelihoods, access rights, governance and management. Her most recent output of preliminary findings from her research were presented at the 14th South African Marine Science Symposium (SAMSS)/ 49th Estuarine and Coastal Sciences Association (ECSA) International Conference at Rhodes University, Grahamstown, 4-7 April 2011. Samantha is still associated with the Environmental Evaluation Unit at the University of Cape Town (UCT) and is finalizing her doctoral dissertation which will be submitted June 2012.
Our associates
Our associates have long-term and lasting associations with our company. They share our core values and working principles and the commitment we have to our clients. Their expertise and dedication add specific value to certain project teams, which further strengthens the delivery and support that we provide to our clients.
Samantha Williams
Rean van der Merwe
Rean van der Merwe is presently engaged in PhD research investigating the implementation of online social media to support civic governance at community level. Rean's focus is on the information sharing and communication processes that underlie sustainable development, as well as the technologies which support these processes. He has formal training in both communications and information systems development and has substantial experience in the marketing and communications sector, including working as marcom consultant, interactive media developer and technical project manager. He presently serves as information systems architect for the DLIST programme, an online information sharing and distance learning toolset which aims to support sustainable coastal development in South Africa, Namibia and Angola. Rean further conducts training in a range of IT and communication topics and has recently been engaged by the government of Namibia to consult on e-Governance systems and related communcation strategy.
John Hanks
John Hanks is a zoologist by training with his first degree in Natural Sciences from Magdalene College, Cambridge, followed by a PhD on the reproductive physiology, growth, and population dynamics of the African elephant in the Luangwa Valley, Zambia. He has 45 years of experience in a wide variety of conservation management and research projects.John has worked in several African countries, including Angola, Botswana, Ethiopia, Kenya, Mozambique, South Africa, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. His major most important postings have been: Chief Professional Officer for the Natal Parks Board; Professor and Head of the Department of Biological Sciences, then the first Director of the Institute of Natural Resources at the University of Natal; the Director of the Africa Program for WWF International (based in Gland, Switzerland); the Chief Executive of WWF-South Africa; the first Executive Director of the Peace Parks Foundation. He has published over 120 scientific papers.
Jonathan Kingwill
Jonathan Kingwill is an environmental assessor by training with his first degree in Civil Engineering from the University of Cape Town, followed by a Masters in Environmental Management, also at the University of Cape Town. He is currently registered with the Interim Board of Environmental Assessment Practitioners of South Africa (EAPSA), and in the 14 years of practice has gained extensive experience in environmental impact and risk assessment, environmental management consulting, local community development, participatory planning and process facilitation. Jonathan has been studying developmental psychology for over a decade and also has a practice in that field. He has worked in several African countries, including Madagascar, Swaziland, and South Africa. He conducts his work with a “bottom-up” approach, thus cultivating capacity at the local level, enhancing more effective implementation of broader planning frameworks, thus instilling psychological ownership of projects on the ground and providing the best possible chance for long-term sustainability.
Jacob N. Oranje
Jacob Ntintin Oranje is a business development consultant specialising in small and medium enterprise (SME) development. While one of his specialities is to convert emerging small business concepts into fully-functional business entities, his passion and life-goal is "to empower through change". His academic qualifications range from public administration, economics and public finance to human resources management. Currently, he is studying towards a Masters degree in coaching. Jacob's human resources management exposure coupled with his small business development experiences provides an unique interface for capacity-building and business and community development interventions. He is currently working as a consultant in the SME/ entrepreneurial development sphere. Prior to this, Jacob has worked on a variety of assignments, including DLIST (www.dlist-bclme.org), NACOMA and Transfrontier Conservation Areas - but always with a focus on the inextricable linkages between coastal resources and coastal communities. Besides having worked on coastal governance issues, he completed a wide range of assignments in the fields of conservation awareness raising and capacity building of local communities.
Fairuz Mullagee
Fairuz Mullagee, a Southern African Advanced Education Fellow, has a B Phil in Social Research Methods obtained at the University of Stellenbosch, Honours in History from the University of the Western Cape, and a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Cape Town. A knowledge management specialist with a pro-poor approach to human development, her special interest is methodology and monitoring and evaluation for improving efficiency. She has about twenty years of extensive research and management experience. Her work spans a broad field that includes policy design and analysis and implementation. Her key strength is her high level of skill and ability to convert large volumes of data into useful knowledge through her systems approach to data management. She served as the Submissions Secretary in the Constitutional Assembly in the formulation of the first democratic Constitution of South Africa. In 2000 she led the research for the South African Women’s Budget Report.
Dr Desiree Manicom
Dr Desiree Manicom’s is a social scientist. Her research interests are: sociological analysis of social issues, gender, public policy analysis, civil society and public participation in policy, social policy. As an academic her social scientific experience derives from research, supervision of research projects and lecturing at tertiary level for the past 18 years in the discipline of Sociology and the Post graduate Policy and Development Studies Programme. She has a Phd in Sociology and a Masters Degree in Social Science (Industrial and Labours Studies) from the University of KwaZulu Natal and University of Natal respectively. She obtained an undergraduate Bachelor of Social Science and a Higher Diploma in Education (Secondary) from the University of Cape Town. Her current areas of lecturing are Research Design and Statistics, Policy Monitoring and Evaluation, Civil Society and Policy, Public Policy Analysis, Rural Studies, Gender and Development at a post-graduate level in Sociology and the Policy and Development Programme in the School of Sociology and Social Studies. She has supervised 22 Social Science Masters Research projects in policy areas which include: Employment Equity, Environment, Transport, Education, Social Development, Health, Local Government and Gender. Her work in research consultancies outside the university has included research design and management, questionnaire design, interview and focus group guide design, training fieldworkers, designing frameworks for monitoring and evaluation of programmes, programme evaluation.
Conrad Steenkamp
Dr Conrad Steenkamp is a social anthropologist (Ph.D.) with an environmental sciences (MSc) and business (MBA) background and over 18 years experience as a consultant in the environment and development sector. He has worked intensively with communities in and adjacent to protected areas in southern Africa. Among others he was community negotiator in the Makuleke land claim negotiations, playing a key role in the design of the co-management agreement. As a postdoctoral fellow at Carnegie Mellon University’s Centre for Integrated Study of Human Dimensions of Global Change, he set up and ran a southern African research programme on transboundary protected areas. It develop synergies between researchers and focused on the interface between communities, researchers and Park authorities, culminating in a major conference. He has also worked on stakeholder engagement in the urban and industrial sectors, managing the campaign to save the endangered Brenton Blue Butterfly, acting as stakeholder engagement consultant for Transnet, and serving as a mediator for the Office of the Premier of the Western Province during the recent xenophobic violence in South Africa. He has also reviewed and written provincial environmental legislation, and several management plans for national parks and a world heritage site in South Africa and Mozambique. More recently he worked as training adviser in Afghanistan, engaging directly with rural communities. He has substantial experience working with agencies such as the World Bank, DfID, GtZ and others.
Isaac T. Havilah
Isaac T. Havilah (BSc Hons) is currently finalising his MPhil (Community and Development) with Stellenbosch University, South Africa and has a BSc (Hons) Environmental Science in Wildlife and Rangeland Management. He received several professional trainings which include “Formulating Proposals for Clean Development Mechanisms (CDM) Projects” (University of Twente, The Netherlands [TSD, ITC, UNEP RISOE]), Results Based Monitoring & Evaluation (Local Livelihoods – UK) and a Certificate in Integrated Safety, Health, Environment and Quality (SHEQ) Internal Auditing. He has experience in systems thinking, social and participatory methodologies, and development programme/project management, as well as the development and implementation of planning, monitoring and evaluation (M&E) systems with Catholic Relief Services (CRS), WWF-TRAFFIC East/Southern Africa, WWF-Miombo Ecoregion Conservation Programme and the WWF-Regional CBNRM Programme. In addition, he has over 8 years working experience with Non-Profit Organizations regionally in Africa and some Asian countries. He has also worked on the preparation and implementation of the WWF Integrated River Basin Management (IRBM) – Zambezi River Basin Project across its riparian states and several transfrontier conservation areas (TFCAs). His competencies and specialties revolve around programme development & management evaluation, sociology of development, value chains & market linkages, SHEQ, Clean Development Mechanisms (CDM), renewable energy and engineering, Climate Change and Climate Solutions, wildlife trade and monitoring, water and sanitation, protected area management, protected area reclassification, restoration ecology, IWRM, natural resource econometrics and modeling, community-based natural resource management (CBNRM) and environmental policy analysis. Further, he has a sound background in rapid assessments, Integrated Management Plans (IMPs), Environmental Management Plans (EMPs), Environmental Impact Assessments (EIAs, SEAs and IEMs), environmental law and legislation.
Floors Strauss
Floors Strauss has completed his Matric in Steinkopf in 1976, and completed various courses that include Project Management and Planning and Economic Empowerment through the University of Witwatersrand. He is very experienced in community facilitation, environmental education activities and was also chairperson of the Richtersveld Communal Property Association. Born and grown up in the Richtersveld, Namaqualand, he always puts community interests first. Since 1997, he managed projects that include Training and Support for Resource Management (TRANSFORM) and the Richtersveld Biodiversity Project funded by the Global Environment Facility (GEF) and is currently working on several land-use and land ownership projects elsewhere.