Our team
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Justin Jay
Justin is a wildlife documentary filmmaker and conservation biologist from the United States. In 2010 Justin became the first person to successfully track, photograph and film drills in the wild and has been coming back to Bioko every year since. Previously working as a biologist for government agencies such as the USGS, Fish and Wildlife Service and the South Carolina Department of Natural Resources, Justin has made a career out of finding rare and endangered species. After his first film "El Proyecto del Mono Dril" he started a wildlife documentary production company, Drill Films, which has brought drills to broadcast television in order to raise awareness for this incredible species.
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Jana López
Jana is a conservation biologist and primatologist that holds a BCs in Environmental Sciences and an MSc in Primatology. She began by focusing her fieldwork on behavioral ecology investigating a wild population of blue monkeys for the first time in Mozambique. After coming to Bioko Island she knew firmly that her work and dedication would continue here to conserve this wonderful and unique place. Jana has also previously worked in rescue centers and zoos in Spain with many different species of primates. Combining her hands-on experience together with her primatology studies Jana plans to develop new projects in Equatorial Guinea related to animal welfare, education and conservation.
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Oriol Colomo
Oriol is an environmental biologist and ethologist. After graduating in Environmental Biology, his first forays into this discipline were devoted to the ecology of marine mammals in the Chilean Patagonia and The Netherlands, where he also worked on animal care in rescue centers. Behavioral studies on marine mammals led him to get passionate about the study of behavior and to focus his career on this direction by studying an MSc in Research in Behavior and Cognition, which awakened his interest in primatology. For the Master’s thesis, in the summer of 2022, he traveled for the first time to Equatorial Guinea to collaborate in a brief investigation on the presence of drills in Pico Basilé National Park
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Silvestre Malanza
Silvestre Esteban Malanza is a young Equatoguinean who, despite having grown up in an environment with little awareness of the importance of biodiversity and nature, has known deep down that nature has a unique value, essential for all forms of life on Earth. He enjoys art, sports, music and dance, but above all, he aspires to become a zoologist. For this reason, he took his first steps studying Environmental Sciences at the National University of Equatorial Guinea. Dedicated to social work since he was very young, he strives to contribute his grain of sand to achieve improvements in his community and in the relationship between people and nature. For him, being part of The Drill Project team is a way to contribute, learn and connect with his passion.
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Gregorio
Gregorio was born in Micomiseng, in the continental part of Equatorial Guinea. He arrived on Bioko in 2006, where he dedicated his first years to bushmeat hunting, a rather common activity among the people from Basilé Fang, his new village. Back in 2016, he was hired by INDEFOR-AP (Instituto Nacional de Desarrollo Forestal y Manejo del Sistema de Áreas Protegidas) to work as an ecoguard in Pico Basilé National Park. He is currently also collaborating with The Drill Project as a field guide, sharing his valuable field knowledge. In the future, he would like to complement his passion for wildlife conservation with botany studies.