The Lost Mountain is moving forward: the Additive Adventure 2015 Next Gen Symposium is in July, and we have 26 participants from Africa and North America. The African participant team is assembled. Seventeen students from Namibia, Zimbabwe, South Africa and Mozambique ranging from undergraduate to doctoral students will join us in Gorongosa National Park. Meet four more:

Lelani Mannetti, Namibia, Masters candidate in Conservation Ecology at Stellenbosch University, Windhoek. My passion in life revolves around the interface between society and our natural environment, and I’ve focused my academic career on studying communities living adjacent to national parks. For my Masters degree, I worked with the ≠Khomani Bushmen of the southern Kalahari, while my doctorate is focused on livestock farmers, agro-pastoralists and indigenous communities surrounding the Etosha National Park in Namibia. In my opinion, the rest of us can learn a great deal from such communities about our dependencies on nature, or at least be reminded thereof.

Being part of the Lost Mountain Symposium would teach me how to bring the complexities of my work down to the community level, where the knowledge would be salient. In having credibility, relevance and legitimacy, the symposium has the prerequisites in place for getting the message across; that the old rules no longer apply. My entire academic career I have sought after the connection between science, conservation, education and action. This opportunity would allow me to add adventure to that!

Raimundo José Raimundo, Mozambique, Positive Tracks Next Gen | Undergraduate student majoring in Ecotourism and Wildlife Management at Manica Superior Polytechnic Institute, Chimoio. In 2011, I first traveled to Gorongosa National Park. I have been impressed by how much the park ecosystem restoration has produced good results. I have a passion to be part of this great initiative to protect ecosystems not only Gorongosa but also other conservation areas in my country. To help, I developed a project to Gorongosa National Park-GNP entitled ‘’Movement Patterns and habitats utilization by elephants in GNP’’. My fascination with elephants led me to important discoveries about the social and sexual life and their handling skills and exploration space.

What inspires me to participate in the 2015 Lost Mountain Conservation Symposium is the way it will contribute positively to the enrichment of the professional competencies of the participants. The training we will receive during the Symposium will contribute to an increase in conservation action through interaction of researchers and conservationists.

Julian Sendin, South African, Masters candidate in City and Regional Planning at the University of Cape Town. My short term professional goal is to either complete my articles and practice law as an attorney and operate in the field(s) of planning, property and environmental law or to complete the two years candidacy necessary to become registered as a professional city planner and work either in the field of natural resource management (which would include water catchment areas such as Goronogosa), local economic development and housing.

I am motivated to take part in the 2015 Lost Mountain Symposium by the possibility of meeting inspirational and driven individuals from different walks of life and sharing with them a once in a lifetime opportunity to experience Mozambique’s pristine Gorongosa National Park. I am especially excited by the multidisciplinary and hands on approach of the project and equipping myself with the planning and management principles of the Leave No Trace technique. I believe that a symposium as exciting as this is bound to give rise to watershed moments, foster paradigm shifts and beckon a spiritual awakening.

Gugulethu Amanda Shibe, South Africa, Positive Tracks Next Gen | Undergraduate student majoring in Social Science Geography and Environmental Management at the University of KwaZulu Natal, Pietermaritzburg. My dream is to be an environmental practitioner and educator. I aim to achieve my goal and grow my passion into a successful action that will bring positive change, by being involved in communities and promoting substance farming (like the one-home-one garden initiative) and creating awareness on the low cost ways in which people can help decrease negative environmental impacts on the environment and educating children at a tender age about the importance of environmental sustainability.

What inspires me to join the 2015 Lost Mountain Conservation Symposium is that it is first and foremost inclusive of people from differing parts of the world, so they be able to interact and exchange progressive ideas and knowledge that may contribute positively to environmental conservation and world being. In addition, the training offered at the Symposium will further instill the importance of natural resource conservation and sharpen my skills in teaching the public to be environmentally aware.

Monicah Mbiba, Zimbabwe, Doctoral Candidate in Animal, Plant and Environmental Science at the University of the Witwatersrand. Since obtaining my BSc in Forestry and Wildlife Management from the National University of Science and Technology in Zimbabwe in 2008, I developed a keen interest in the area of natural resource management in southern Africa, particularly the implications for rural livelihoods. I completed an MSc in Environment and Development at a university specialising in rural African Development, the University of Reading in the UK.

I joined the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg in March 2013 studying on a particular topic entitled ‘Ecological sustainability, social capital and rural livelihoods in the central lowveld of Mpumalanga Province, South Africa’, which also is at the interface of the environment and the development rural communities, an area I am passionate about. The poverty in Zimbabwe and other southern African countries, my own personal experiences and struggles growing up and my education has taught me the far reaching impacts of poverty and the complexities faced in trying to address this evil. I have a desire to make a change in society through community-based natural resource use and conservation.