Boyd Varty

Boyd Varty was born to a family of conservationists in the African bush and grew up surrounded by the people and animals who were part of the family’s dream to “restore Eden.” As a child, he shared his home with lions, leopards, snakes and elephants. At age 7, he served a newly liberated Nelson Mandela, who had come to his family’s home to find stillness and nature after his years in prison.

As an adolescent, Varty completed his basic schooling by studying the curriculum of a typical Western educational system while traveling the African bush to restore ecosystems, living in India and Europe to deepen his understanding of language and culture and reading broadly to absorb a standard body of knowledge in the arts and sciences. As a university student he studied psychology and ecology, supplementing his education by learning martial arts in Thailand, hiking through the jungles of the Amazon and apprenticing himself to a renowned tracker from the Shangaan tribe to deepen his intimate knowledge of the natural world.

As he continues his path of linking the growth of the human mind and spirit with the restoration of ecosystems, Varty has published his first memoir, "Cathedral of the Wild," launched a career as a coach who introduces first-world seekers to an intimate relationship with the wild and devoted himself to healing not only landscapes and animals, but also the people and human systems that must coexist with nature to create a healthy and sustainable future for life.

His family’s nature preserve is named “Londolozi,” Zulu for “protector of all living things.” Boyd Varty’s life has been, and will continue to be, formed by that ideal.