Kim Parker

Having grown up on a farm on the outskirts of Cape Town and with many cherished childhood memories travelling through Southern Africa with her family, Kim developed a deep love for African landscapes and wildlife. Kim completed a BSc in Environmental Science at Rhodes University where she learned of the inextricable link between people and nature. She became fascinated with the interconnectedness between social and ecological issues, particularly in an African context. While working on her Honours thesis, investigating the impacts of a trophy hunting ban on Private Land Conservation Areas (PLCAs), she gained first-hand insight into the challenges facing conservation management systems today. Consequently, she developed a keen interest in the conservation field and a desire to help solve highly complex and unpredictable conservation issues.

Kim is a member of the Cape Winelands Biosphere Reserve (CWBR) Youth Board. This platform is dedicated to helping the Reserve achieve its goal of conservation, promoting sustainable development and reconnecting people with nature. She believes this Masters course will provide her with new knowledge and skills which can be used to help develop effective conservation projects that will promote sustainable social development in the Western Cape and beyond. She also looks forward to learning from and engaging with a large number of accomplished professors, researchers and fellow students. In her spare time, you can find her sipping coffee out of her flask on top of a mountain.

Thesis: Using a top predator as a sentinel for heavy metal exposure in a human- transformed landscape. (Supervisors: Dr Jacqui Bishop, Gabriella Leighton)