Wild Eye and the Work of a Lifetime with Beverly and Dereck Joubert, Ep. 109

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What does it look like when conservation is not just a mission, but a lifetime practice?

In this episode, I sit down with Beverly and Dereck Joubert, whose decades of filmmaking, photography, and advocacy have helped shape how the world sees Africa’s wildlife. Their new book, Wild Eye, is a retrospective of what they have witnessed—but our conversation is really about what you do with what you witness.

We talk about the shift from documenting nature to defending it, and why they believe silence is no longer neutral. We also explore the deeper operating system underneath effective conservation: how protection becomes possible when it is tied to livelihoods, when tourism is shaped intentionally, and when storytelling is treated as strategy rather than decoration.

If you work in conservation, this conversation is a reminder that long-term wins often come from unglamorous decisions, values-based tradeoffs, consistency, collaboration, and building models that can last. If you simply love wild places, it is a powerful invitation to turn connection into responsibility, and responsibility into action.

Highlights

• What experience helped move them from storytellers to advocates?
• How their model of “Conservation funded by tourism” has worked to stop hunting, protect land, create jobs, and see wildlife rebound.
• What lesson did they learn after their terrible accident with a buffalo and what it can teach us about resilience.

What YOU Can Do

• Speak up where you have influence- at work, in your community, and in the rooms where decisions get made. As the Jouberts put it, if you see something going wrong, do not be complicit through silence .
• Choose with intention: If travel is part of your life, do the research. Look for ethics, authenticity, and proof that a company is working with communities and doing no harm—because conscientious tourism can either protect wild places or put them at risk .
• Collaborate: You do not need to start your own foundation to be part of the solution. Beverly talked about plugging into existing work—from community power projects to conservation and rewilding—so that your skills, resources, or donations become part of a bigger ripple .

Resources

• Wild Eye by Beverly and Dereck Joubert
• Great Plains Foundation

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