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You don't see patterns when living them but at my big age it is fascinating to see how things link up. I like how community can both be used for plants and people and you can learn something by understanding the dynamics of community. #BlackBotanistsWeek #BlackBotanicalHeritage
Like @noxthelion https://twitter.com/noxthelion/status/1279905865965977600?s=20 I also have a botanically inclined Dad. Robert H. Koopman excelled in Botany while doing his Education degree @UWConline as well as being from a plant loving family (including a nursery owning uncle). #BlackBotanicalHeritage
Regular hikes (my first overnight trail was at 6) and outdoors exposure in spite of apartheid limiting movement (I was 12 when some of the final laws were repealed) with a father knowledgeable on indigenous plants (our fynbos) rubbed off. And I ended up at UWC too.
Where, after some uncertainty, I ended up studying botany too. At a @fynbosforum conference I met the team from CREW https://www.sanbi.org/biodiversity/building-knowledge/biodiversity-monitoring-assessment/custodians-of-rare-and-endangered-wildflowers-crew-programme/ and that basically changed my life. Interning at @SANBI_ZA led to work relationships still going today.
I then spent a few years at a company working in Environmental Impact Assessments (my boss was a botanist) and increasingly infatuated by the threatened plants of the fynbos region. Weekend trips with CREW and interactions with Botanical Specialists kept that flame burning.
A further targeted internship with CREW and secondment to provincial conservation agency @CapeNature1 led to a permanent position at CN's Scientific Services unit as a botanist specialising in fynbos https://www.capetownbotanist.com/what-is-fynbos/
After more than a decade being fynbos obsessed, I've moved to the Botanical Society of South Africa https://botanicalsociety.org.za/ as the Conservation Manager.
I've been married to @FlorencedeVries for over 7 years and we have a 4 year old daughter, the #FynbosPreschooler.
I've been married to @FlorencedeVries for over 7 years and we have a 4 year old daughter, the #FynbosPreschooler.
