Willem joined Natural Justice in 2023 as a part-time Senior Programme Officer in the Southern Africa Hub. He is based in Namibia and brings with him a unique level of expertise to support the work with Indigenous peoples and local communities in his home country. His expertise includes knowledge of land rights litigation, climate change law, biodiversity and conservation law, Indigenous peoples’ rights issues, knowledge of common law and plural legal systems, all of which are supported by several years of working with legal experts and academics on multidisciplinary research projects in the broad area of environmental and human rights law.
Willem has over 20 years of socio- and legal research experience, which includes individual and collaborative community and field research. He also has over 15 years of project management experience, working as the project coordinator of the Land, Environment and Development (LEAD) project at the Legal Assistance Centre (LAC) in Namibia.
In 2023, he completed his PhD from the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow, Scotland, focussing on land rights in Namibia.
