Where the Wild Things Are: Dereck and Beverly Joubert

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NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC EXPLORERS-in-Residence Dereck and Beverly Joubert have spent nearly three decades researching and documenting the lives of lions and leopards in Africa, and their colorful photographs and videos are on display at the National Geographic Museum in "Lions and Leopards: The Work of Dereck & Beverly Joubert." The couple were in D.C. recently, and chatted about their work and passion for conservation in Africa.

» EXPRESS: What drew you to working in Botswana?
» BEVERLY: We're from South Africa, and 28 years ago we left and went to Botswana for an adventure. We fell in love with the wilderness of Botswana and decided that was where we wanted to live and work.
» DERECK: I think we both had the desire to leave the city and go out and do something extraordinary. We had a passion not only for each other, but for life, for nature, to do things outdoors.

» EXPRESS: What about working with wildlife and the environment is so fulfilling?
» DERECK: We use our work as conversation, as a way to talk to people about the things we care deeply about. Right now, we're giving the majority of stress to big cats, and the books, films, everything we do at the moment is about getting the message out that big cats are endangered.
» BEVERLY: Our workplace changes, so we never get bored like in an office. We move from one area to the next, and each area is different — one is a desert, one a semi-desert, one a delta. So we are constantly stimulated by landscape changes, and the animals interact in a different way in each area. And the more we have climactic change, the more we are going to see the animals forced into situations that perhaps no one has seen before.

» EXPRESS: You work in a range of media — film, photography, books. How do you balance the workload?
» DERECK: Working together can be tricky for many people, but we do it with respect and communication and divide the roles. Beverly does all the photographs, and I do the video.

» EXPRESS: Besides the plight of big cats, what are some of the other issues you're passionate about?
» DERECK: Game reserves and national parks have become islands in seas of cultivated land, and we know that the more these parks become isolated, the greater the chance they're going to disappear. A couple years ago we started a company called Great Plains that goes in and superimposes an economical aspect — ecotourism — to increase the size of the land. We do what we can as filmmakers, but we're also rolling up our sleeves and getting involved.

» EXPRESS: What does an explorer-in-residence do?
» BEVERLY: We've had a long relationship with National Geographic, which started early on when we showed a film at a film festival. Over the last few years, they invited us to be explorers-in-residence. There are 13 in the world, and each explorer has excelled in their career and has the grounding to be able to make changes in their area of expertise.

We work in southern Africa and in conservation, and we engage in a range of media for National Geographic, from magazine articles and television shows, to cinema releases and children's books. We believe they are the future of our planet, and we like to start inspiring young children toward nature and conservation. We also do lectures and talk to schools, whatever we can do to get the message out. We like to take it a step further and invite people to take action and get involved.

» National Geographic Museum, 1145 17th St. NW, through Oct. 4, free. (Farragut North)