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Philipp Goeltenboth
Managing Director Coastal East Africa
Education
- MSc - Biology and Wildlife Management, Free University of Berlin and Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research, Berlin
- BSc - Biology, Free University of Berlin
Areas of Expertise
- Community-based natural resource management
- African mammals
- Wildlife management
- Marine conservation
- Conservation in Africa
"By working with local communities and heads of state, we can conserve a wilderness where large animals will continue to thrive as they did centuries ago."
About Philipp Goeltenboth:
Philipp is a born conservationist. He was raised on the grounds of the Berlin Zoo - where his father was the chief veterinarian - in a house filled with exotic rehabilitated animals. "We had a lynx named Cara, gibbons, Vietnamese pot-bellied pigs and lots of birds. I grew up thinking this was normal."
Today, Philipp tackles issues from overfishing to climate change and works to develop low-tech, easily implemented programs that enable local communities in Coastal East Africa to successfully coexist with the likes of elephants and lions. Some of his more notable projects include 'the poor man's electric fence' - ropes covered with hot chili powder that makes elephants itch and the 'Elephant B Gone' chili bomb. You lob the 'bomb' at an approaching elephant and it explodes in a cloud of very spicy dust. According to Philipp, the elephants "really, really hate that."
