Two organisations, one beginning
In 1990, a group of guides formed the Field Guides Association of Southern Africa. They wanted one thing: a standard for guiding, so that a guide at one lodge meant the same as a guide at another.
Three years later, in 1993, guides from Londolozi and the Sabi Sands started EcoTraining. They wanted the same thing from the other side: a school that could train guides to that standard, professionally.
We have been walking the same road ever since. EcoTraining is a FGASA- endorsed training and CPD partner. Our instructors are FGASA certified as well as FGASA endorsed assessors. Our students write FGASA exams. Our Professional Field Guide course, which we launched in 2008, was built on the FGASA standard. When we became the first guide training school in Africa to earn accreditation from the Council on Higher Education in 2023, FGASA endorsed the qualification.
Our missions overlap almost completely. FGASA exists to set and protect the standard of professional guiding. EcoTraining exists to create guides and guardians of the natural world who meet it. One writes the bar. The other trains people to clear it.
FGASA already acts as the industry’s professional body
For 36 years, FGASA has done the job a professional body does. It has set and maintained the standards, run the exams and assessments, trained and endorsed the assessors, kept a code of conduct, and handled the discipline when guides broke it.
The numbers tell the story. More than 30,000 guides have earned FGASA certification since the early 1990s. FGASA has 4,540 current active members. It lists 72 endorsed assessors, spread across five provinces in South Africa and three neighbouring countries. It also endorses 31 training providers across southern Africa.
FGASA is a registered non-profit company and a full member of the World Federation of Tourist Guide Associations.
Most importantly, the lodges trust it. When we checked 15 field guide vacancies live on South African job boards in September 2026, 11 named FGASA as a requirement or preference. The other five named none of the guiding bodies. No other body was named. When a lodge wants a guide, it asks for the FGASA standard. That is what a professional body looks like in practice.
What is happening now is that the State is catching up with the industry.
What is happening
FGASA has applied to the South African Qualifications Authority (SAQA) for formal recognition as the professional body for nature guiding. SAQA is the government authority that keeps the official register of every qualification and every recognised profession in South Africa. It works under the National Qualifications Framework Act of 2008, an Act of Parliament.
In April 2026, SAQA published a public notice of its intention to recognise FGASA and to register FGASA’s professional designations. The public comment period has closed. The final decision is now with SAQA.
To get this far, FGASA had to prove five things: that it is properly governed, that it protects the public, that it makes its members keep learning, that it has a code of conduct, and that it does not unfairly shut people out. Those are SAQA’s criteria. They are the same criteria that recognised bodies for accountants, engineers and nurses had to meet.
What this means for you as a guide
Recognition and credibility. Your title, “FGASA Certified Field Guide”, goes on the record with SAQA, on the National Learners’ Records Database that holds every recognised qualification in the country. You are not holding a certificate that says you attended a course. You are holding proof that you have met a national professional standard.
A visible career ladder. You always know your next step. Start at the entry-level qualification, log your hours, and pass the assessments at each stage. Move up to Certified FGASA Field Guide, then Professional Field Guide, then the trails guide designations. Every step is on record.
Room to specialise. You can follow what you love. Pathways into tracking, birding, marine guiding and cultural guiding let you keep growing and keep earning long after your first certification.
Mentorship, CPD and support. You are not left on your own after you qualify. Mentorship, continuing professional development and assessment support stay with you through your whole career. Workshops, specialist courses, logged field days and industry events all count towards your CPD, so your designation still means something in ten years’ time.
A professional network. You join something bigger. Membership plugs you into FGASA’s community and into the employer and industry networks that hire guides. It also puts your verified designation where lodges and credential evaluators can check it through the proper channels.
Practical member benefits. You get real perks, such as preferential SATIB Guides Cover discounts and other partner offers. And because FGASA is a full member of the World Federation of Tourist Guide Associations, the credential you carry is understood by employers abroad.
What this means for lodges
Hiring confidence. When you hire a designated guide, the checking is already done. They have been assessed by an endorsed FGASA assessor against a published standard, signed a code of conduct, and committed to ongoing development. You spend less time guessing and carry less risk in the appointment.
Risk and insurance benefits. Guides carry rifles in dangerous game country and hold the lives of guests in their hands. SATIB Insurers reference FGASA certification when they assess safety compliance and liability. A guide checked by a recognised professional body is a smaller risk to your guests, your reputation and your cover.
A development pathway for your guides. You do not have to build a training system from scratch. The CPD and designation framework gives you a structured way to grow guiding talent in-house, and it keeps the guide you hired five years ago still learning today. When a guide falls short, the professional body has a complaints and disciplinary process to fall back on, up to removing the designation.
Credibility and professional alignment. International guests increasingly ask about guide qualifications. “Our guides hold FGASA professional designations” is a line you can put on your website, and one that lodges and evaluators can verify through the proper channels. It signals that your camp runs to the same national standard the rest of the profession is aligning to.
The other big change: the move to QCTO
Alongside professional body recognition, the whole national training system is changing. Guides and lodge managers need to understand it, because it explains why a strong professional body matters at this moment.
For 30 years, guide qualifications in South Africa were built on unit standards and run through CATHSSETA, the training authority for tourism. That system is being replaced across all industries by occupational qualifications under a body called the Quality Council for Trades and Occupations, or QCTO. The new model puts more weight on workplace experience, practical assessment and a single national exam at the end.
The new nature guide qualification is still being finalised. Because guiding is a legally regulated profession under the Tourism Act, the old qualifications cannot simply be switched off before the new one is ready. That would leave no legal way for a new guide to qualify.
FGASA, together with CATHSSETA, argued for more time. On 17 June 2026 the government published a gazette extending enrolment for the current guiding qualifications by 24 months, to 30 June 2028, with a completion deadline of 30 June 2029. That is what a professional body does for its members: it makes sure the profession does not fall into a gap.
For guides and training providers right now, nothing stops. Current guides keep working. Current courses keep running. FGASA designations stay active. EcoTraining is working with FGASA and CATHSSETA on the new qualification and will keep our students informed as it takes shape.
FGASA’s role has changed to a that of a Professional Body that sits above training: awarding designations, running CPD, keeping the register, holding the standard. That is exactly the role SAQA recognition makes official.
Why the whole industry must stand behind this now
This is the final stage. The application is in. The comment period has closed. What happens next depends partly on SAQA and partly on whether the guiding industry shows, in plain numbers, that it stands behind its professional body.
There are four simple ways to do that.
Guides: be a member in good standing. Renew. Log your guiding days. Keep your designation current. A professional body is only as strong as its membership.
Lodges: name the FGASA designation in your job adverts, and use the full name, “FGASA Certified Field Guide”, not just “Level 2”. Recognise the designation in your pay structure. Support your guides’ CPD. Employer demand is the strongest evidence a professional body can show.
Training providers: train to the professional FGASA standard, use the FGASA name correctly, and take part when FGASA asks for input on the new qualification and assessment tools.
Everyone: when SAQA calls for industry participation in verifying the new qualification, turn up. Numbers matter.
Where EcoTraining stands
We have trained more than 18,000 people from 33 countries to the FGASA standard. Our instructors assess for FGASA. Our directors have sat in the room with FGASA, CATHSSETA and the QCTO for years. We know how hard this profession has fought to be recognised.
The guides of southern Africa deserve a professional body that the State stands behind, a title that nobody can copy, and a career that is recorded and respected anywhere in the world. FGASA built the standard. It is time for FGASA to be recognised by SAQA.
EcoTraining supports FGASA’s application without reservation. When SAQA publishes its decision, we will update this page.
Sources
SAQA public notice on FGASA (22 April 2026): saqa.org.za SAQA, Recognition of Professional Bodies: saqa.org.za/services/recognition-ofprofessional-bodies SAQA register of recognised professional bodies: pbdesig.saqa.org.za FGASA, “Navigating the transition to QCTO” (8 June 2026):
fgasa.co.za Government Gazette No. 54858, 17 June 2026 (extension of legacy qualification enrolment) FGASA press release, 3 December 2024: fgasa.co.za FGASA endorsed delivery partners and assessors: fgasa.co.za/resources World Federation of Tourist Guide Associations, full members: wftga.org FGASA membership figure (4,540) supplied by FGASA, September 2026
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