I am a born-and-bred South African writer, editor and speaker living in Cape Town. I’ve worked in advertising (my shady past), on newspapers and their websites, and in television. My editorial work includes editing academic writing and books, sustainability reporting, and writing for various organisations and corporates, mostly on environmental, climate change and sustainability issues. As a journalist, I have special interests in social justice, HIV and environmental issues. There’s a more detailed account of my experience here. This site chronicles my professional life. I have another more informal blog, Leaves caution behind. I tracked developments towards COP17, the UN climate conference in Durban, December 2011, here. I am an editor for CSP Africa.
Past affiliations
Until February 2012, I worked part-time, mostly on communications, at SAFCEI, a secondment from its board. I have worked for Incite Sustainability, where I have also been an associate. Between 2003 and 2005, I worked for the Nobel Prize-nominated Treatment Action Campaign and the associated Community Media Trust. From 1998 to 2001, I worked for the Mail & Guardian, including time spent as manager and editor of the M&G Online. In the 1990s, I also worked for a time as a freelance theatre critic for that paper. My career began at Ogilvy, the ad agency.
Leaves of language
The name of this blog is from an article written by Daisaku Ikeda in the Japan Times (‘Restoring our connections with the world’, Oct 12, 2006):
Our planet is scarred and damaged, its life-systems threatened with collapse. We must shade and protect Earth with ‘leaves of language’ arising from the depths of life. Modern civilization will be healthy only when the poetic spirit regains its rightful place.
Ikeda’s article begins by discussing the Man’yōshū (‘A Collection of Ten Thousand Leaves’), the oldest (1300 years) surviving collection of Japanese poems.
Banner photo
If it’s still a range of lowish mountains with red cliffs, and sweet green grasses, then it’s on the N7 north from Cape Town, near Vanrhynsdorp, August 2008, at the beginning of a bitterly cold and stormy weekend.
Contact
Comment here or email me at david dot lepage (at) gmail dot com.
– David Le Page
