Louis van Niekerk

Who is Louis van Niekerk?

Louis Petrus van Niekerk is an international conservationist, explorer, freelance photographer and published poet.

Van Niekerk was raised in Empangeni in the heart of Kwa-Zulu Natal.

He has obtained most of his conservation and wildlife experience in the Highveld and Lowveld of South Africa. He has worked with many private game reserves in South Africa, including Thula Thula Private Game reserve, with Lawrence Anthony the founder of The Earth Organization, a privately registered, independent, international conservation and environmental group with a strong scientific orientation.

Van Niekerk's passion for poetry started at a very early age and he has been writing poems and short stories since he was 10 years old. He has published a number of poems with the Poetry Institute of Africa and has won various poetry competitions. A lot of his inspiration comes from visits to his grandfather's farm in Kokstad, Kwa-Zulu Natal and the wildlife that he has been surrounded by all his life in Africa. His poetry has a very African style, but he has written European style poems as well as epic poems. Although van Niekerk wrote English poems, he has also written a number of poems in his native language, Afrikaans.