Have you noticed that podcasts that relate the stories of amazing achievements are almost always about men? The Wild Basil podcasts are helping to fill this chasm by bringing to you the stories of extraordinary women who have been hidden from history. Listen carefully and you will hear how they have struggled against colonial rule and apartheid in Southern Africa. Listen and you will marvel at how they have overcome many obstacles and transformed the landscape of conservation and biodiversity in their countries. The Wild Basil podcasts begin in the 1970s with Mozambique’s struggle for independence against Portuguese colonialism and takes us to the pristine region of Niassa that borders on Tanzania and Malawi, and then further south into the Chimanimani national park on the border with Zimbabwe. From there we travel with our heroes into Zimbabwe, Namibia, Angola, Botswana, South Africa and end our journey back in Niassa. Here we learn how in the last 15 years, the devastation of widespread illegal poaching has been undermining the development of the park and how this was stopped. You will also discover how amazingly teddy bears and laughter might have made more inroads than many other community-based interventions on cohabitation. 

In episode 1, we hear AnaBela’s spirited story of how, as a teenager, she abandoned her ballet lessons and secondary schooling to join Mozambique's liberation struggle which led to independence in 1975. After completing her master’s degree in economics 25 years later, she accepted the challenge of becoming the first manager of the recently created Niassa reserve - a territory the size of the Netherlands. She had basically no staff and an impossible budget. By the time she left ten years later, she had cultivated a public/private partnership which ensured an operational budget. Her staff had grown to 100.  She had placed Niassa firmly on the map of conservation.

In episode 2 you will join Milagre on her incredible journey.  It was 1975, after Mozambique’s independence, when Milagre, like other youths known as the “Geração 8 de Março” were assigned to areas of work and training most needed for national reconstruction. Did she choose the forest, she still wonders, or did the forest choose her? She has dedicated her life to protect it, to protect the people living in it and the livelihoods they sustain from it. We follow her as she travels from the pristine Parque Nacional da Gorongosa, to New York, Uganda, Brazil, Cuba and back to Mozambique as the first national director of forestry and wildlife, eventually setting roots in Chimoio. There she founded Micaia securing the livelihoods of many and continuing her commitment to saving trees. 

In episode 3 we meet Moreangels, a scientist studying carnivores in Zimbabwe. Consider this statistic: Africa contributes to only 1% of the world's scientific output. And of the African scientists less than 30% are women. As a little girl raised on the outskirts of Hwange National Park, she could never have imagined becoming a scientist. Despite the fact that her community was adjacent to the park, she would only discover the wonders of the bush much later. Then it was love at first sight. In this podcast, Moreangels shares with us her scientific findings, as well as her love of the bush with its tantalizing scents and sounds.

Episode 4 will take you to Namibia, when it was called South West Africa and was still under apartheid rule. Here you will meet Maxi who was raised in poverty and suffered the impact of apartheid as a child and teenager. You will follow her story as she travels and studies outside of Namibia after independence in 1990 and realizes for the first time that Blacks could run a government! Inspired by her experiences she went on to create the communal conservancies program in Namibia. These conservancies are now a global model for the successful management of cohabitation between people and wildlife. 

Episode 5 takes you to Angola and introduces you to Adjany. She was only three when she was sure that a batman car had entered Luanda! In fact, the country was engaged in civil war – which ended in 2002 - and the capital was being invaded. Growing up in a country at war, Adjany had one safe space: the beach. She made the ocean her life. In this episode you will discover how she became a marine biologist, how she reacted with excitement to her first encounter with the bush, how she joined the Okavango wilderness project and was filled with joy while paddling down the highlands of Angola to the tip of the of the so-called hand of the Okavango Delta.  What she loved eventually led her appointment as Minister.  All this and she was only twenty-nine old!

In episode 6, Koki will introduce you to the Okavango Delta in Botswana. You will join her as she describes walking through a veritable indigenous medicine cabinet. Koki’s descriptions of discovering Maun and the wonders of the Delta will make you dream of visiting the area yourself! Through her work she became committed to ensuring that the stories from the continent are told by the people living its realities and not by outsiders. She created an innovative teacher training programme for her country that has as its goal the linking of regions and across generations to build awareness of the vital need for conservation.

Episode 7 will take you to the heart of the Kruger National Park, one of the jewels of South Africa. Your guide will be Cathy. You will hear about her love for the Rhino, especially the black rhino, and how she became known as the rhino whisperer. You will also discover the challenges of being the head ranger of a 2-million-hectare national park, larger than some European countries, and the impact of the battle against illegal poaching that has been escalating since the start of the 2010s. 

Episode 8, our final podcast of the series, will amaze you with its love and tenderness, its encounters and its magic. You will be taken back to where we began, to Niassa, Mozambique. You will travel with Paula, and hear  how she is using crocheting in an innovative way, to engage with local communities. And through approach, to promote for the first time, an empathetic space for dialogue about coexistence between humans and wildlife that includes tenderness and laughter.