Photo by Sean Laurenz
Sheila Berry - Chairperson
Sheila has been actively involved with EarthLore as a board member since 2015 and was its part-time director for four years. She is a clinical psychologist who has been a strong campaigner for Wilderness and for social and environmental justice for more than 30 years. This was after working in the iMfolozi Wilderness area as a wilderness psychologist, where she witnessed, firsthand, the healing power of Mother Earth, especially for youth from disadvantaged communities.
She views Nature as the source of physical, mental, psychological and spiritual wellbeing and health and draws inspiration from indigenous people, particularly hunter-gatherer communities in Southern and Eastern Africa, where she worked previously, and from the traditional rural farming communities EarthLore accompanies.
In 2014 she initiated the Save Our Wilderness (SOW) campaign under the auspices of the Global Environmental Trust (GET) which, together with the ALL RISE legal team, support the Mfolozi Community Environmental Justice Organisation (MCEJO) in opposing coal mining on their tribal land. Their land neighbours the Hluhluwe iMfolozi Park, in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa, established in 1897 as a sanctuary for Rhino. The MCEJO farmers have a longstanding connection with EarthLore, a relationship that is being strengthened with each victory that prevents more of their land being mined.
Gertrude Pswarayi-Jabson
Gertrude Pswarayi-Jabson is the Country Coordinator for the Participatory Ecological Land Use Management (PELUM) Zimbabwe. For the past 17 years, she has been working with Civil Society Organisations to raise consciousness on agroecology, food systems, gender, information and communication technologies and livelihoods on practical and political intervention level. She holds a MSc. degree in Development Studies and a BSc. Degree in Journalism and Media Studies. Gertrude is an award winning journalist and a member of the African Earth Jurisprudence collective.
Liz Hosken
Liz Hosken was active from a young age in both environmental issues and the anti-apartheid movement in South Africa. Later, in the mid eighties, she co-founded The Gaia Foundation, to work internationally, based in the UK. During the first decade of Gaia's work she was initiated into indigenous ways of seeing the world in the Amazon, which resonated with her own. There she learnt that it was possible for indigenous communities to revive their knowledge and practices and reclaim control of their lives, rooted in their own cultural identity. She now works with partners in various African countries to restore Africa's rich cultural, spiritual and ecological heritage through experiential learning and the philosophy and practice of Earth Jurisprudence. She has a BSc in Environmental Sciences and a Masters in Philosophy and Education for Social Change. In 1991, Liz received the Jameson Award. Gaia has received the Schumacher Award, the One World Award for media work on biodiversity related issues and as part of the Colombian Amazon Programme, the Right Livelihood Award. She is an Advisor to the Home of Mother Earth Foundation and various other organisations.
Colin Campbell
Colin Campbell grew up in rural southeastern Botswana, the son of a respected anthropologist and a mother known for her healing powers. On formative childhood travels with his father he spent much time in the bush, learned from traditional San people the ways of the desert, woke beside lion paw prints, and regularly fished cobras out of his bedroom drawer. At eleven, he was diagnosed as having the illness of calling, which ultimately led to his being trained and initiated as a traditional doctor and sangoma. Through the time of his upbringing he acquired a deep knowledge of Tswana culture and its traditional medicinal and spiritual practices.
Colin is currently a practitioner of traditional African medicine. He is based in Cape Town, South Africa. He receives clients from all over the world and facilitates group processes relating to natural law, transformation, healing and personal power, sacred sites, and cross-cultural cosmology. Colin co-founded a training school in Botswana for traditional doctors and sangomas with his brother Niall Campbell. He is an artist and musician, bridging the traditional with the contemporary.
