Ian McCallum is a medical doctor, psychiatrist and analytical psychologist, as well as a specialist wilderness guide, an author and a poet.

His special interests focus on evolutionary theory, human ecology and the animal-human interface (what we learn about ourselves from the animals) and astronomy.  He is the Writer/Poet for the ‘Untamed’ exhibition 2010, a year long exhibition at Kirstenbosch Gardens.

Visitors to Kirstenbosch are in for an absorbing and thought-provoking experience with UNTAMED.  UNTAMED explores the lost balance between humankind and nature.  It is a collaborative exhibition between Dylan Lewis, Enrico Daffonchio, Ian McCallum and Kirstenbosch.   The exhibition opened in July 2010 and includes a garden trail along which visitors will discover strategically placed monumental bronzes interspersed with McCallum’s prose and poetry.

McCallum’s journey as an author and poet began many years ago.  He first published his anthology of wilderness poems, Wild Gifts in 1999,  followed a year later by his novel Thorns to Kilimanjaro.

Ian Player and Ian McCallum became close friends and their shared passion for Wild Africa is clear in Player’s forward to McCallum’s anthology of poems, `Wild Gifts’.   “Each poem brings images and sounds of this most ancient of continents and as Ian has suggested, if you read them out aloud, I believe you will hear the echo in the deep personal Africa that all of us carry – the millions of years of human evolution in Africa imprinted in our pscyche. ”

McCallum’s  award winning book Ecological Intelligence – Rediscovering Ourselves in Nature addresses the interconnectedness of all living things and ultimately, the survival of the human animal.  It was published in South Africa in 2005 and in the USA in 2009.  An Exclusive Books HOMEBRU selection in SA, it won the Wild Literary Award at the World Wilderness Congress in Mexico 2009.

McCallum’s other interests include photography (Agfa Wildlife ‘Man and Nature’ category winner 2001) and sport (he is a former rugby Springbok, 14).  He is a director of the Wilderness Foundation and a trustee of the Cape Leopard Trust.   He presently directs the Environmental Education programme for the Wilderness Foundation.  When he is not in wild places recalibrating his heartbeat with that of Nature, he lives with his wife Sharon in the Scenic South. To purchase a copy of Wild Gifts email Ian McCallum at .

KimK