NACC Leadership Biography

Sebastian Chuwa

Sebastian Chuwa was born in 1954 in Sungu Village, on the slopes of Mt. Kilimanjaro. He was educated in botany, studied in Kew Gardens in England and took an International Diploma in Botany in Stockholm, Sweden. He has worked as a safari guide for over 30 years, guiding tourists to the wealth of natural beauty in the northern Tanzania park system, including Ngorongoro Crater, Lake Manyara, the Serengeti Plains, and Lake Victoria. He has worked in a volunteer capacity as a conservationist throughout his adult lifetime. His particular love is planting trees. He is a champion of the mpingo, or African Blackwood, tree, the National Tree of Tanzania. This tree has important international uses for the manufacture of woodwind instruments and within Africa it is utilized by native carvers. He also works tirelessly in the reforestation of Mt. Kilimanjaro, the highest mountain in Africa, where he was born and still lives, planting trees to preserve the ecology of the mountainÊand to serve theÊeconomic needs of the people who live there.

Sebastian has organized various youth environmental clubs to implement tree planting, working with local conservation networks in schools called Malihai Clubs and also with Jane Goodall's Roots and Shoots Clubs. Sebastian's wife, Elizabeth, is an elementary school teacher and together they place great importance on the education of the youth of their country. They seek to impart a sound environmental conservation education to the thousands of children that their work has reached. Sebastian also serves as mentor for various adult conservation groups around Mt. Kilimanjaro, and together with the school groups, Sebastian has supervised the planting of one and a quarter million trees, including both mpingo and other indigenous species.

Spending a considerable part of his life outdoors, he is a tireless advocate for the environment, influencing the children whose lives he impacts with a message of appreciating nature and preserving it for future generations. Sebastian partners with a US team who have founded the non-profit organization called the African Blackwood Conservation Project (www.blackwoodconservation.org) in promoting and implementing tree planting and environmental conservation education in northern Tanzania. In recognition of his conservation work, Sebastian has been honored with several international awards: an Associate Laureateship from the Rolex Awards for Enterprise in 2002, a Spirit of the Land Award from the Salt Lake Olympic Committee at the 2002 Winter Olympics, a World Saver Award from Conde Nast magazine in 2006 and the J. Sterling Morton Award from The National Arbor Day Foundation in 2007.