Explorer Francois Malherbe uses the ancient art of tracking wild animals on foot to help young people better understand the basic principles of curiosity and teach them about exploration. Here, he explains his work and why he thinks curiosity is the key to a more empathetic world.
Francois Malherbe is an explorer, career coach and a member of The Explorers Club, an international organisation dedicated to the advancement of field exploration and scientific inquiry. He works in the areas between Cape Town, the Okavango Delta, and the central Kalahari region, in Botswana, Southern Africa. It’s there that he runs the Curiosity Company, where he uses the ancient art of tracking wild animals on foot to teach young explorers the basics of problem-solving using curiosity.
“I founded the Curiosity Company to give young people new skills that would enable them to navigate an ever-changing work life by preserving the instinct to explore. Over the past 15 years, my company has taken youth groups to many different and remote areas. I call myself Chief Curiosity Officer just for fun – it is a summary of my work as a career coach, explorer and nature guide,” says Francois.
Growing up in Kwazulu Natal in southeast South Africa taught him to appreciate nature from an early age, and the positive effect that nature can have on us. “I had the privilege of regularly spending time in nature from a very young age, and both my parents showed me how to protect and care for the natural environment, which later helped me understand my role in protecting wild areas. ”
"Because of my upbringing in rich biological diversity, I was fascinated by nature, which created a reverence for it, sustaining my curiosity to this day."
-Francois Malherbe
Today, however, Francois feels that in many ways humankind has lost the ability to be curious.
“Curiosity is a superpower! It arms people for the future since it takes you where you need to go, and teaches you what you need to learn,” he says enthusiastically. In a world where we can access answers to just about anything at the touch of a button, we’ve forgotten how to ask the right questions. Francois believes that we should instead be willing to embrace the unknown and let the answers take their time.
He has always been inspired by exploration, even spending a year at sea at a time when he was looking for a new direction in life. It was during this sailing trip that he decided to start the Curiosity Company and in turn, create a place that encourages others to use an explorer’s mindset, something that he believes can help us learn valuable skills: “The future of working life will be all about solving environmental problems. To solve them, we have to remember that it’s not the earth that needs healing, but humans. If we disappear from this earth, all ecosystems and life on earth will be restored. It’s us humans who have to find our place in the wild and in nature again, so that both we and the ecosystems can thrive.”
Francois then describes a life-changing moment when he visited the San people in the central Kalahari region in Botswana. “Ancient stories flow underneath the sands of the Kalahari, and you can feel it with every fiber of your being. The importance of that place runs deep, since all modern humans are believed to be descendants of the San. They are our oldest human ancestors. One morning, we went for a walk to track an oryx. My walking speed was much faster than the San. At one point, one of the elders in the group laid his hand on my shoulder and whispered in my ear: ‘You must walk slower to allow your soul time to catch up. That is how you become one with nature’s mysteries.’”
For Francois, the San had given him a gift to understanding the basics of using curiosity in nature. They showed him how ancient solutions can solve modern problems. They taught him to be a participant instead of a spectator. The gift in question was the ancient art of tracking wild animals on foot. With that gained knowledge, Francois began to arrange tracking expeditions to remote places in Botswana, to teach others how we can build new relationships with unknown environments.
“Tracking in its purest form is a full body experience. For example, when we track a leopard, we find a track or a sign of its existence and start looking for clues: the size of the tracks, the direction it came from, the tempo of the animal, and so on. When we know this, we can start asking questions. Why was it here? When was it here? What did it do? When we lose the tracks, we must lift our heads, see the bigger picture, and ask ourselves: If I were a leopard, where would I go? In that moment, you learn to trust your intuition. Our bodies will always provide the best signs of how to live a good life, both in nature and in everyday life. That’s why we must listen to our bodies,” says Francois.
His ultimate ambition is to create a Curiosity Club HQ for young explorers, where they can gather and learn how to preserve the instinct to explore and be curious. It would be a place that continues the work of the company today: to help them solve the problems worth solving for a better future.
