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The Team
The Singita Grumeti Fund employs 180 dedicated staff to protect, manage and monitor Grumeti’s concessions and wildlife. Thanks to their passion and commitment, the near-barren plains of ten years ago teem with wildlife once more. In fact, the great herds are once again lingering in this scenically spectacular region during the annual migration, a direct result of our team effectively protecting and re-stabilizing this fragile ecosystem.
| Noel Mbise | |
| Ecologist | |
| Noel joined Singita Grumeti Fund in 2015. Prior to his current role, he spent six years as an ecologist in natural resource management and conservation with Tanzania National Parks (TANAPA). In his younger years, Noel worked in hospitality management as well as in development microfinance. His practical skills lie in environmental and terrestrial ecosystems management, policy analysis, and conservation project design and evaluation. Other professional capacities are in business sustainability, environmental and social impact analysis, environmental consulting, and technological innovations for conservation research and management. |
Noel grew up on the south-eastern slopes of Mount Meru, Tanzania. The forest scenes, sounds and smells were very much a part of his childhood. All of these early encounters with nature inspired his passion for conservation.
In 2014 Noel earned a Master of International Environmental Policy degree from the Monterey Institute of International Studies in Monterey, California. His focus was on Natural Resources Management/Policy and Environmental Sustainability. Prior to his masters he earned a Bachelor of Science in Wildlife Management at the Sokoine University of Agriculture in Morogoro, Tanzania.
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| Kristen Denninger Snyder | |
| Post-Doctoral Researcher | |
| Kristen earned her PhD from the University of California, Davis and is now a post-doctoral scholar at Colorado State University and with the Singita Grumeti Fund. Her research focuses on understanding the dynamics and mitigation of human-wildlife conflict in the western Serengeti. She relies on a number of data sources to inform this work, including household surveys, historical records, elephant movement data, and, with the launch of Snapshot Grumeti, – camera traps! |
| Nick Bester | |
| Interim Conservation Manager | |
| Nick Bester studied nature conservation in Cape Town in the early 1990s and has been involved in conservation and guiding in South Africa and Tanzania since he graduated. He started his career as a conservator in the Double Drift Game Reserve in what was then an independent homeland called the Ciskei, now the Eastern Cape , South Africa. He first moved up to Tanzania in 2006 to work as a field guide at Singita Grumeti Reserves. He then left guiding and worked in wildlife conservation to the south of the Greater Serengeti Ecosystem. He joined the Singita Grumeti Fund in 2017 as the Conservation Manager. |
Nick finds conservation management to be an ideal position – the work is challenging, varied, and extremely rewarding. It entails a good deal of time out in the field where he is the happiest. One of the most rewarding, although sometimes heartbreaking, parts of his job is aiding in removing snares from wildlife. Nick is excited to be involved with new and cutting edge projects in conservation management and research.
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| Yohana Augustine | |
| Section Manager | |
| Yohana has been working with the Singita Grumeti Fund since 2002, and was promoted to Ikorongo Section manager in July 2016. He is from nearby Makundusi Village, and his knowledge of the area is an enormous benefit to the conservation management team. Yohana’s favorite aspect of his current role is the opportunity it presents to work as a member of a larger team, and working towards common goals with all departments of the Singita Grumeti Fund. He recognizes that the camera trap project is an excellent way to obtain new information about local wildlife populations, which can then be used to inform management efforts and conservation activities. He is most excited that the cameras have already provided evidence of the presence of greater Kudu in Ikorongo Game Reserve, which have not been observed here in at least a decade. |
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| Makuru Rugatiri Wagora | |
| Section Manager | |
| Makuru started his career with the Singita Grumeti Fund in 2005, first with the firefighting team, and later with law enforcement as a game scout. He advanced through the ranks on the law enforcement team, eventually being promoted to a regional leader. In 2016, Makuru was promoted to his current position as Section Manager. Makuru has repeatedly demonstrated his dedication to learning new skills – he has completed three certificates in wildlife management, two at Pasiansi Wildlife Training Institute, and one at the College of African Wildlife Management - Mweka. Makuru’s passion for wildlife conservation, dedication to developing new skills, and willingness to tackle new challengs makes him an invaluable member of the SGF team. |
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| Getiga Chiwa | |
| Section Manager | |
| There are few employees within the Singita Grumeti Fund who have spent as much time in the Grumeti and Ikorongo Game Reserves as Getiga Chiwa. He has worked here since 1998, prior to Paul Tudor Jones’s involvement with this project. He has been with the Grumeti Fund and later the Singita Grumeti Fund since 2002. For most of his employment he has been in an anti-poaching role, and was promoted to Central Section Manager in the conservation management division in January 2017. Chiwa has a house in the nearby village of Issenye, where he enjoys spending time with his large family when he is not busy working in the bush. Chiwa is passionate about wildlife conservation and enjoys the varied work that he is responsible for – every season brings new challenges! The camera trapping project gets Chiwa to places he would seldom go to otherwise, and helps him keep tabs on what is happening in his section. He enjoys getting new images of rare and interesting animals captured by the cameras. |
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| Peter Mkilindi | |
| Assistant Research & Monitoring Coordinator | |
| Peter trained at the College of African Wildlife Management - Mweka, Tanzania before joining the Singita Grumeti Fund in December 2013. He has more than seven years of experience in wildlife management and conservation, community development, and environmental management. In his position as the Assistant Research & Monitoring Coordinator, Peter is responsible for monitoring, compiling, and analyzing a number of datasets, including weather, law enforcement, fire, vegetation, hydrology, large mammal counts, camera traps, and human-wildlife conflict. Peter especially enjoys working with data in GIS, taking advantage of opportunities to learn new skills, and improving data management and analysis to better address management issues – not to mention, getting to do all of this while in the beautiful Serengeti. Peter says that the camera trapping project is of special interest to him because it offers the unique opportunity to view rare species that you otherwise would never come across. |
