Biography

South African botanist and National Parks director. Andrew Murray Brynard grew up on a Merino sheep farm near Calvinia, Cape Province, and earned an MSc degree from Potchefstroom University for his study of Senecio retrorsus (a poisonous plant known to invade depleted and overgrazed grassland areas in Eastern Cape). He began his career with the National Parks Board in 1952 when it commissioned him to study the ecology of all the national parks then in Cape Province: Addo Elephant National Park, near Port Elizabeth; Bontebok National Park, near Bredascorp; Kalahari Gemsbok National Park in Northern Cape; and Mountain Zebra National Park, near Craddock, where he was stationed. Since he was the first biologist to be appointed to carry out research in the national parks of Cape Province, his first priority was to establish some basic facilities, including a small but useful reference herbarium representing the range of species, communities and biomes he had to deal with, from Karoo to Dry Valley Bushveld, from Fynbos and Cape Floral to semi-desert Kalahari. Duplicates of all the plant specimens he collected were sent to the National Herbarium in Pretoria.

In 1955 he was given leave to begin doctoral studies at Aberdeen University in Scotland. His research, which he conducted under the supervision of James Mathews and Charles Gimmingham, was a comparative ecological study of two Erica species, E. tetralix and E. cinerea. Having finished his research and the practical fieldwork for his PhD, he returned to South Africa in 1957 to take up the post of Chief Biologist at Kruger National Park, and in his spare time wrote up his thesis. At the end of 1958 he took a few weeks of leave to put final touches on the manuscript. On the journey home, the briefcase in which he kept the finished manuscript and all his experimental and field work data was stolen from the car while he and his wife stopped at a roadside restaurant for some refreshments. A few days later the police found some remnants of the manuscript in an isolated place frequented by criminals; the rest, together with all the back-up data, was burned, three and a half years of hard work terminating in smoke and flames.

Despite this traumatic experience, which cost him his doctorate, Brynard built a successful career as a researcher through his work at Kruger Park. As Chief Biologist, his main function was to coordinate and oversee all research conducted in the park by staff and visitors. He also carried out his own research, including a study of the influence of veld-burning on the park's vegetation, although this work required only a limited amount of collecting because a well-established herbarium was already in existence at the park. His research career effectively came to an end when he was appointed Warden in 1961. He retired in March 1987 as Executive Director of National Parks, based at the Board's headquarters in Pretoria, having overseen the proclamation of eight new national parks. He represented the National Parks Board and South Africa internationally at general assemblies of the IUCN and meetings of the WWF and served on the boards and councils of a number of organisations and on several commissions of inquiry in South Africa. During the 1970s he was an official advisor to the Lesotho Government on the establishment and management of national parks.

After his retirement, he was appointed to the National Transport Commission, which advised the Minister on all aspects of transport and especially the planning, funding, and construction of a national road network. Due to his ecological background, he was nominated to serve on the Board of Directors of the Ecological Institute established by the Commission at Potchefstroom University to provide suitable plant material and seeds for rehabilitating the different regions where road building was being done. He currently lives in Pretoria.