About us
Our story
We are Thomas & Serena, the founders of TheEcoHunter. Our hearts beat faster when we can experience wild places with their unique wildlife and be part of nature.
Serena is half South African and spent a lot of time in the bush of southern Africa with her family as a little girl. Although we both worked in marketing and sales in Germany, Africa kept pulling us back. In 2018 Serena completed her training as a FGASA Field Guide and Trails Guide with Advanced Rifle Handling certification in South Africa.
Together we traveled South America and wild places in southern Africa such as South Africa, Botswana and Mozambique as overlanders. Then we spent two years as hunting lodge managers on a hunting farm in Namibia. That time shaped us deeply. We saw first-hand that hunting, when done right, is applied conservation and protects the wild places we love so much. We built valuable relationships with hunting farms and NAPHA (the Namibia Professional Hunting Association) and developed a real passion for the topic.
The concept of unfenced hunting farms with native, free-roaming game fascinated us – and in 2022 it inspired us to found TheEcoHunter with 7 hunting farms from very different parts of Namibia. Our clients hunt on hand-picked, unfenced farms with native game, and we put great value on transparency and on explaining what sustainable hunting means.
As experts for almost every corner of Namibia, we want to show our clients not only the hunt but more of this fascinating country. Fishing, safari, camping, lodges or the endless desert – we have seen and experienced almost all of it, and we want to give you and your non-hunting companions a unique journey into Namibia’s wilderness.
What we stand for:
our promise
Focus on nature: native game & unfenced hunting areas
With our partners you can be sure that you only hunt on farms with unfenced (not game-fenced) areas that are hunted sustainably, with free-roaming, native game.
Unforgettable experiences – for you AND your family or friends
Namibia offers more than a hunting area. We put together an experience for you, your friends and family: road trip, fishing and more. Namibia is incredibly diverse and a very special destination for non-hunting companions, too.
No service fee – the same prices as booking directly with the farm
You get advice, service and one personal contact for your whole trip. And you can be sure you won’t pay a cent more than if you booked directly with the hunting farm.
No more endless research: we help you plan your entire trip
We have a great network and help you with everything around your trip – rifle import, travel itinerary, choosing a taxidermist, packing list and much more. Our support goes far beyond the booking.
Write to us – no obligation, quick and easy!
★★★★★
What our clients say
We are thrilled by how much interest our concept has received from the very beginning, and proud to offer a diverse portfolio of hunting farms. We are especially happy to see how deeply hunters engage with sustainability in a foreign country like Namibia – and how many unforgettable moments we have already created through careful, individual planning. We are very proud of our high client satisfaction. See for yourself:
➔ Read our Google reviews
➔ Read our ProvenExpert reviews
Memberships & partnerships
Listen to Serena on the German-language Jagdzeit podcast (Spotify or the Jagdzeit website):
#89 Serena Bouwer – Hunting travel at its best
With TheEcoHunter we want to:
Inform, respect, protect.
With the right principles, carefully selected farms and in line with the key players in the country, such as NAPHA (the Namibia Professional Hunting Association). Our focus is on three core aspects of sustainability: native game, selective hunting and unfenced farms.
With our knowledge of every corner of the country, its people, wildlife and plants, the background of hunting and the goals of the Namibian hunting association, we want to help you – with transparency and empathy – experience very special hunting moments in nature.
Our goal is to bring hunters together with sustainable farms, to preserve wild places and their diversity of native game.
We look forward to hearing from you,
Thomas & Serena of TheEcoHunter
"Our goal is to bring hunters together with sustainable farms, to experience unforgettable moments in Namibia's unfenced wilderness, to share them with like-minded people – and so to help preserve Namibia's wild resources for the long term."
Hello!
We are Thomas and Serena, and you are probably reading the most untypical “About us” story you have ever read on a hunting website: our connection to and passion for sustainable hunting started somewhere very different from where most people would expect.
To be honest, we never thought we would spend so much time with the concept of hunting in Namibia, let alone develop such a passion for it. Just a few years ago we had no connection to hunting at all. On the contrary – like many others, out of lack of knowledge, we did not understand the idea of “hunting abroad” and rejected it.
Thomas trained as an automotive sales professional, studied business administration and worked as branch manager at a car dealership near Hamburg.
Serena trained in marketing communications, studied media and communication management and worked as a marketing manager in the FMCG industry. She is also half South African and a qualified safari guide.
In 2019 we traveled through Central and South America, and at the end of 2019 we explored every corner of southern Africa in an overlanding vehicle. In 2020, because of Covid, we got “stranded” on a hunting farm in Namibia. We lived and worked there for almost two years and learned to appreciate sustainable hunting.
Everyday life with a Namibian farm family on 12,000 hectares (almost 30,000 acres)…
At first it took us four whole months to understand the concept and connections of sustainable hunting in Namibia – and the topic has not let go of us since.
Farm owner Henner – trophy hunting outfitter, cattle farmer and horse breeder – spent countless hours answering our critical questions patiently and in detail. Besides the practice, he explained the background, the problems and the dark sides of hunting in Namibia.
Based on his thinking, his hunting practices and what we experienced ourselves, we formed our own opinion about hunting and the important question of ethics. We asked ourselves some fundamental questions:
- What is ethics anyway – and under which conditions does the much-debated “trophy hunting” really serve conservation?
- What would happen to Namibia’s wildlife if there was no more selective, sustainable hunting?
- And who actually makes sure hunting is regulated sustainably?
With his hunting farm, his honesty and his firm ethical principles, Henner became a role model for us, and we realized: it works.
He didn’t just talk – his principles were real. For two years we lived the real life of a farmer – no ideology, but a pragmatic and clear practice based on firm principles.
We saw the full picture – and where the money from hunting really went:
- He protects his game from poachers
- he makes sure the game has access to water at all times (guess how many water pumps and dams we repaired during that time alone?)
- hunting is highly regulated and selective, based on clear criteria
- hunting follows the principle of fair chase – all hunters always stalk on foot
- the meat reliably goes to the farm staff and their families and to the guests – every animal was butchered and used from head to toe
And we changed our mindset. We saw up close what a farmer in Namibia has to deal with
Drought, fire, the fear of not having enough water or grazing, broken dams, corruption and poachers. No support from the state – every business is on its own.
At the same time we met many hunters who told us about their experiences on other hunting farms.
Some hunters told us that, without knowing it, they had ended up on high-fence hunts and on farms with hunting practices they found unethical.
Only after a few trips to Namibia did they know what to look for and what mattered to them when choosing a hunting farm.
Through the network we built during those years and our contacts with the key players in the industry, we realized there are many hunting farms that also follow firm ethical principles and practice sustainable hunting that benefits conservation and wild places. Unfortunately, some of these farms have hardly any online presence and are barely noticed.
We thought: how can that be?
These are exactly the farms hunters should choose – the ones that truly value and protect their game and help preserve habitats and stable populations. It seemed to us that there was a real need for information, and that a source with comprehensive, transparent information was missing.
So we asked ourselves: what can we do so that these farms get support, become visible and get a digital marketing voice? Which aspects matter when choosing a farm, and what information does someone interested in hunting need for that?