Major Pieter Wit, (Ret.)

Major Piet Wit is Director/owner of Syzygy, a consultancy firm on Conservation-cum-Development. He is also former Chair of the IUCN Commission on Ecosystem Management and as such, former member of IUCN council.

Major Wit’s other memberships/activities include: the Board of the Hustai National Park Trust in Mongolia; Member of the board of the Foundation Reserves for the Przewalski Horses in The Netherlands;  Secretary of the executive council of Daridibó (Guinea Bissau); Advisor to the Board of the Foundation Chimbo (The Netherlands); Councillor of the Neder-Betuwe Municipality; and author of an instruction booklet for army-officers that are deployed in reconstruction activities in a context of military operations to control armed conflict.

His experience includes long-term missions around the world on biodiversity conservation and management projects, including participatory management of protected areas and their buffer zones, integrated water management and integrated rural development. Highlights in this career were his work at the Garoua Wildlife School in Cameroon, with Delft, with the Hustai National Park Project in Mongolia and with the Dutch Army in Uruzgan, Afghanistan (ecosystem development of agriculture).

Presently Major Wit is spending much of his time and energy on the protection of chimpanzees in South-Eastern Guinea Bissau. For his work with Przewalski horses in Mongolia he was awarded the Mongolian Friendship Award and ‘Honoured nature conservationist of Mongolia’. He is also an Honorary Citizen of the Central Province of Mongolia.

Individual Members of GMACCC serve in their personal capacity and not as representatives of their respective organisations.