Steve Boyes

South African conservation biologist Steve Boyes is the Founder of the Wild Bird Trust. With a passion for wilderness and restoration, he works to protect Botswana’s pristine Okavango Delta from threats upstream. In 2015, Boyes and his team poled and paddled dug-out canoes over 1,500 miles across the Okavango River Basin from source-to-sand in 121 days. This was the first exploration of the remote upper reaches of the Cuito and Cuanavale Rivers. New species. Unknown waterfalls. First contact. The goal. Work with the Angolan government to establish, by far, the largest wildlife reserve in Africa. One of the great conservation opportunities of our generation. We are these last wild places everyone of us. A childhood fascination for wild parrots has Boyes working tirelessly to mitigate all extinction threats to Africa's parrots. He discovered and successfully combatted a devastating outbreak of Psittacine Beak and Feather Disease in wild Cape parrots, Africa’s most endangered parrot. His research motivated a moratorium on the importation of African grey parrots, Africa’s most traded wild bird, into South Africa. He is currently focusing on planting a million indigenous trees and establishing new protected areas. Boyes is a Fellow at the National Geographic Society and a 2016 TED Senior Fellow.