RENIAS MHLONGO

Renias Mhlongo was born in a mud hut on what is today part of the greater Kruger National Park. He is one of the last people to be raised in the original traditions of a Shangaan hunter-gatherer.

During Apartheid, Renias and his family were forcibly removed from their homestead and sent to a Black settlement called Dixie in Mpumalanga. Without any formal education and relying only on his ancestral learnings, he found employment at Londolozi game reserve as a wildlife tracker in 1984.

Here, Renias played a significant role in the habituation of the world-famous leopards of Londolozi and spent 36 years working as a guide, tracker, and tracker trainer, logging approximately 15,000 hours tracking big game on foot at Londolozi Game Reserve, as well as at game parks around the world.

In 2010, Renias became a principal trainer of the Tracker Academy, conducting wildlife tracker training across South Africa, Kenya, Botswana, Zambia, Tanzania, Malawi, Rwanda, Brazil, Chile, Australia, and North America.

As a natural storyteller and having travelled all over the world, Renias has touched many with the gracious manner in which he teaches people about African wildlife, culture, and philosophy.

Together with his long-standing friend and colleague, Alex van den Heever, they continue to teach tracking and conduct keynote presentations internationally. Their inspirational talk, The Power of Relationships, has relevance for both local South African and international audiences alike.

Renias has also co-authored two books with Alex, the bestselling Tracker Manual, as well as their latest book Changing a Leopard’s Spots.