Protecting Africa's Wellspring

With the support of the Rolex Perpetual Planet Initiative, conservationist STEVE BOYES has spent years tracing the headwaters of Africa's major rivers. His latest research could shape the future of water security for millions.

- By CANDICE CHAN

When you go back far enough in human history, the world map narrows down to a single continent. The earliest Homo sapiens fossils point to Africa as our original homeland. This is where rivers, forests, and savannahs predated our species by millions of years. In the minds of many biologists, that extraordinary biodiversity is more than just a backdrop to our origins. We are who we are today because of it.

There are few people who take that idea as personally as Steve Boyes. The ornithologist, conservation biologist, and chairman of the Wild Bird Trust has spent over a decade exploring remote wetlands, mapping uncharted watersheds, and documenting species at risk of extinction.

As a National Geographic Explorer, Senior TED Fellow and Rolex Perpetual Planet Initiative partner, he has dedicated his life to conserving the fragile ecosystems that sustained early human societies and continue to sustain millions of Africans today.

Rolex's partnership proved crucial. In 2019, the Perpetual Planet Initiative, which supports scientists and explorers working in the frontlines of climate change, enabled Boyes to expand a series of isolated expeditions into something much more ambitious: a coordinated scientific programme aimed at studying and protecting the highland water towers that feed Africa's great rivers. Through that support, he also founded the Wilderness Project and launched the Great Spine of Africa expeditions in 2022.