Jenna Bowker

Jenna Bowker Email: BWKJEN001@myuct.ac.za

Jenna was born in Grahamstown in the Eastern Cape, South Africa. Her family owns a livestock farm near Carlisle Bridge, just outside Grahamstown, which allowed her to escape from the business of town and paved the way for her passion for wildlife. She went to Kingswood College for twelve years and decided thereafter to move to the big city of Cape Town. She completed her BSc degree in Applied and Marine Biology and Honours in Marine Biology at UCT. Her first honours project involved identifying the chemical attractants in seaweed for sea urchins and her second thesis involved the use of parasites for Horse Mackerel stock discrimination in the northern Benguela. Instead of taking a break from studying, she proceeded straight into the CB course to learn about the current issues that the world is facing in conservation. As a ‘people person’, she would like to bridge the gap between communities and conservation, making people aware how wildlife is threatened by our actions. Her interests involve anything to do with the outdoors and she loves playing sport, especially hockey.

Mini-Thesis

Using real-time forest loss alerts and global deforestation maps to assess the effectiveness of Africa's tropical protected areas (Supervisors: Graeme Cumming, Eleonore Hellard)