Meet The Team
The Intaka Island Eco Centre is overseen by the Intaka Island Environmental Trust. Both the Eco Centre and Nature Reserve are managed by the Century City Property Owners’ Association. Environmental, Horticultural & Sporting Codes Division are headed up by Ms Louise de Roubaix.
Louise de roubaix
Louise de Roubaix has over 22 years’ experience in the conservation & environmental field, working for all three spheres of Government as well as NGOs in South Africa and abroad. Louise’s portfolio deals with all matters environmentally related, which includes overseeing the various environmental departments - Intaka Eco Centre, Intaka Island Nature Reserve & In-house Nursery, Landscaping & Horticulture, Canal Maintenance, Waste Management.
Verinique Anyster
Verinique Anyster, is a qualified teacher with over 5 years of teaching experience. She manages the facility, oversees all our educational programs, venue hire and events. Verinique manages the Intaka Eco Centre team, who comes with a range of skills and qualifications ranging from environmental management, tourism management, nature conservation, guiding, skippers, etc.
INTAKA ECO CENTRE
The Intaka Island ECO CENTRE’s day-to-day operations are managed by our Eco Centre Manager and a team of 9 staff members, who are responsible for ensuring we provide a world-class Eco Tourism facility to our over 35 000 local and international visitors. The team of qualified rangers run a full-time environmental education program ranging from foundation to further education& training level, to over 170 Western Cape schools. The Eco Centre has three venues (Lapa, Activity Centre & Energy Cube) managed by the team and available for hire for both private and corporate functions. We frequently host events such as the Winter Night Market, Fathers’ Day sleepover, Full moon hikes and other awareness days linked to an annual environmental calendar.
Her team consists of two Eco Centre Assistants, Mr Thembanani Magazi who is our more senior assistant and Mr Siseko Matshoba.
Ms Melissa February is our friendly office administrator & receptionist who welcomes all visitors and deals with any request, enquiry, and bookings for Intaka.
The team also consists of five rangers/skippers, who are all trained to present educational programs, guided walks, boat trips and assist with general day-to-day maintenance on Intaka island nature reserve and at the Eco Centre. Our cleaning lady makes sure all our facilities and venues are in tip top shape for visitors and clients.
Intaka Island Nature Conservation & Waste Management
The Intaka Island NATURE RESERVE’s day-to-day operations are managed by our Nature Conservation Officer and a team of 6 staff members, who are responsible for implementing conservation programs on the island. These include fire management, alien vegetation clearing, data collection and monitoring programs such as fish surveys, bird monitoring, water quality monitoring, camera trapping, fixed photo plot monitoring, etc. They also assist facilitate animal rescues & rehabilitation in the precinct. The team looks after all the island’s visitor infrastructures like our two bird hides, pathways, and cells of the wetland. Did you know Intaka also has its very own nursery. The nursery provides in-house plants to both the Intaka fynbos restoration and the precinct horticultural planting programs. Fynbos plants are used for our active vegetation restoration through planting and seed sowing.
The Conservation team also oversee Waste Management for the precinct, which includes the two recycle rooms at Central Park, Recycle drop-off-site for residential general waste and our in-house waste tip site for general-, garden- and aquatic waste.
Her team consists of two general workers responsible for all maintenance and conservation work on the island and two nursery assistants who oversee the propagation and planting programs at our in-house nursery.