Continuing the tradition that Louis Liebenberg started, Lee and Kersey donate some of their time and resources to training trackers, and to certifying trackers to bring them recognition and compensation for their skills, wherever and whenever possible.
Sponsorship
We receive numerous donation and sponsorship for tracking requests each year, but unfortunately, we cannot fund them all, but you can help. You can donate towards mentoring less fortunate trackers as you check out from our shop.
A Passion for Sharing
Lee and Kersey have independently supported dozens of guides, naturalists, and trackers on our programs over the years.
We’d like to continue this tradition with our Tracker Mentoring courses and through personal mentoring in indigenous communities and in training trackers to monitor rare species.
Don't get left behind
For all three of Lee’s published textbooks used in these courses, he attempted to include as many photos and drawings as possible, including pictures of the animals as well as their tracks and signs.
He did this to ensure that indigenous trackers who might not be literate would not “get left behind” with new knowledge that he and other trackers were discovering and publishing.
He solicited information and photos from all trackers, everywhere, and conducted a lot of research on his own. In addition, both Invertebrates of Southern Africa and their Tracks and Signs, and Birds of Southern Africa and their Tracks and Signs were sponsored by the Oppenheimer Foundation, and 250 copies of each were donated to indigenous trackers who otherwise would not have been able to afford a book.
The purpose of life is not (just) to be happy. It is to be useful, to be honorable, to be compassionate, to have it make some difference that you have lived and lived well.
Lee, standing with one of the many teams of mostly Shangaan trackers, this one from Kapama Game Reserve, all of whom received sponsored copies of his books to further their education in tracking.
San trackers in the Kalahari Desert using a sponsored copy of Invertebrates of Southern Africa and their Tracks & Signs, by Lee Gutteridge (Photo credit Louis Liebenberg).
Sponsored Trackers
Ntsako Mhlavasi, first sponsored in 2015, with Hopkinton and Bow High Schools (N.H., USA)
Ulusaba Trackers 2018
Leopard Hills Trackers 2018
Ntsako Mhlavasi tracking rhinos, second sponsorship in 2019
Zanele Siwele, first sponsored April 2019
Lucky, a Tracker from Bateleur, with Master Tracker Adriaan Louw 2019
Philpos Mashele, Kruger Park, 2020
Tanda Tula Trackers 2019
Sponsorship
You can help to sponsor less fortunate individuals than yourself through our Sponsorship Options in our shop and in your shopping cart. We deliberately have made our first course, about learning the process, or the good habits of a successful tracker, very affordable, but to some it is still out-of-reach. While we do everything that we can to help others, we can’t do it alone, and we need your help.
You can help by:
Consider purchasing an additional course for someone else who can’t afford it when you check out of the shop. Or, you can donate a lesser amount towards funding either personal mentoring of trackers, or training trackers to monitor rare species. We have several ways that we mentor and train. One is that we either travel to trackers, or bring them to our camp and hold a intensive mentoring workshops. Another is that we donate to Louis Liebenberg and CyberTracker’s Indigenous Elder Master Tracker Fund. Louis identifies areas where indigenous tracking knowledge is still being practiced, and then visits these people in a long-term mentoring capacity where he brings recognition and value to theses people for their existing skills, and encourages them to teach others in their communities. Finally, we travel to areas (or send skilled, certified trackers) where land managers, researchers, and educators have identified a need to use tracking skills to find increasingly rare animals to help with their conservation.
Sponsored Trackers
Any amount contributed here will be sent to Louis Liebenberg, the developer of CyberTracker and the Tracker Evaluation System. Louis spends a considerable amount of time each year in indigenous African communities trying to identify people who still retain tracking skills and knowledge. He works closely with previously marginalized people to try and bring them recognition and employment using their skills, which in turn creates a desire within these individuals and communities to preserve, perpetuate, and promote the ancient art and science of tracking among their young people. Thus, traditional knowledge is retained and new knowledge is documented.
Personal Mentoring – Tracker Training & Evaluation
Sponsor a tracker with personal mentoring – Any amount contributed here will be put to use in travel and associated costs to mentor people, with need and interest, by going to where they are to provide tracker training and evaluation, or in bringing them to join an intensive tracking program or evaluation at our camp.
Rare Species Conservation
On many occasions, we have been asked to help with rare, or endangered species conservation. Unfortunately, these projects don’t come with hefty budgets to support bringing in a team of highly qualified trackers to assist with finding animals or identifying local experts that can help find local animals. In these cases, we use what funds we have to assist, but can’t do as much as we would like. In the end, it’s a race against time for some of these animals, and to have funding on-hand, set aside for these projects will help us to help them immediately.
Our goal is to identify and train reliable trackers for these types of projects, that can be sent in to assist at a moment’s notice. Updates will be posted in our Newsletter and our Sponsorship page.
Sponsor Course 1 for a Student
As you check out from our Tracker Mentoring shop, why not purchase an additional course for a tracker that is less fortunate than yourself?
Course 1. The Tracker Mentoring Manual – Introduction to Tracking in Southern Africa, is designed to give you a process for learning that will maximize your remote “dirt time” wherever you are, whether you live in the city with an occasional holiday into wilder places, or you live a fully immersed life in the bush. Even at times when you can’t get outside, you can progress in your learning through books, journaling, and using our online resources. It’s a “how-to” book to teach you how to develop the skills involved in seeing the world through the eyes of a tracker. There are details revealed about tracks and signs, trailing, behaviours, etc., on almost every page, but this course isn’t about the specifics, it’s about the process.
Sponsor Now
You may sponsor to any of the above options by selecting it from the dropdown below. This amount is added to your shopping cart. If you are only looking to sponsor and not purchase anything else you will still be directed to the shopping cart and can checkout with only the sponsored amount.
We keep track of who needs help, who is helped, who helps, and the projects we help in, and document these details on the Sponsorship page of our website and in our newsletter for fiscal and ethical transparency.
Testimonials
“I have learnt that tracking is not only about the foot prints of the big mammals, but it is about asking the right questions. It is about observing and reading and trying to understand which animal was there, why it was there, what might have happened. Lee and Kersey led me in a totally different world of understanding the bush and the stories nature tells us. “
Bettina Brandt, Frankfurt, Germany. Self-employed, FGASA Level 1, Trailing 1, South Africa