Zul Bhatia

Zul is a Tanzanian citizen of Asian origin who has been living in the UK for many years. He was born and brought up in Dar es Salaam and, as well as being fluent in English, is also fluent in Swahili, Gujerati and Kaatchi! He has been working for the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds as a nature reserve warden/manager for about 30 years, mainly in Scotland. Currently he is based at the RSPB's Lochwinnoch Nature Reserve. He has an exceptional knowledge of the wildlife of east Africa, especially Tanzania, where he and his family spent two and a half years, during which Zul was the co-ordinator of the Uluguru Mountains Planning Project. Zul gets on well with all types of people and during this secondment to Tanzania, he regularly worked with people at all levels from villagers living next to the forest and government officials in the capital city, to representatives of the international donor communities. He has visited/led trips to many other African countries including Burundi, Ghana, Cameroon, Kenya, Uganda, Zambia, Botswana, South Africa and Namibia. He has been leading wildlife tours for many years, has carried out ornithological and socio-economic research in Tanzania and presented papers on the findings to international conferences. Although primarily a birder, Zul is interested in all wildlife and his hobbies include photography (of all sorts) and gardening.