Savena grew out of fieldwork across forests, mountains, woodlands, and savannas in Latin America and Southern Africa — and out of a simple conviction: that to understand a landscape, you have to move between perspectives. Looking closely from the ground, then stepping back to read the wider patterns from above.
Daan Lichtenberg is the founder of Savena. His work focuses on using data, remote sensing techniques, and visual storytelling to study and raise awareness for different natural phenomena in some of the most remote landscapes of Latin America and Southern Africa. Through research, conservation partnerships, and compelling imagery, Daan aims to bridge the gap between science and public engagement to drive meaningful action for nature conservation.
In practice, that means pairing in-depth ecological knowledge with geospatial science to answer the questions that matter most for conservation. Where it leads depends on the question and the partner: a scientific paper, a dataset, a piece of code, photos, a working application, or a combination of these.
Working in places this remote teaches you a few things. Patience. Close observation. The value of connecting with people and their landscapes for the long term rather than chasing short-term outputs. It also blurs the line between fieldwork and analysis — observation, data collection, modelling, and interpretation flow into one another, keeping the science grounded in the places it describes and the methods strong enough to hold up in the field.
Photography is part of the same instinct to look closely. It carries what these landscapes actually feel like to people who may never visit them — and that's often what turns distant ecosystems into something worth protecting.
The next years are mapped the same way the work is done. Slowly, and on the ground. Independent expeditions into the landscapes between the studies. Shared work, too — alongside the researchers, institutions, and local partners. And more stories told from the field as they happen — photographs and field notes from the places the data comes from.
Savena is built to be joined. We work with researchers, conservation organisations, and local initiatives — while building our own independent work too. If you're sharing a similar vision, let's connect!