Brad Bestelink, one of the most respected wildlife cinematographers working in Africa, has reportedly died in Maun, the gateway town to Botswana's Okavango Delta. News of his death came via a tribute from a South African school alumni association, which remembered him as a gifted sportsman and former cricket captain as well as a filmmaker. The cause has not been disclosed.
Bestelink's story is inseparable from the Delta itself. Born and raised there to parents who were among the first to develop photographic tourism in the region, he qualified as a professional safari guide at 16. He then apprenticed with celebrated filmmakers Dereck and Beverly Joubert for over a decade before co-founding the Natural History Film Unit Botswana, a citizen-owned production company that helped turn the country into a serious hub for international natural history shoots.
His camera work appeared in a remarkable run of documentaries: Savage Kingdom, The Flood, Okavango: A Flood of Life, Planet Earth II, Surviving Paradise: A Family Tale, Living with Leopards, Big Cats 24/7, Our Universe and Africa's Fishing Leopards. In 2024 he earned a Primetime Emmy nomination for his contribution to Netflix's Our Planet II.
Just as significant was what he built at home. Through NHFU and his wider network, Bestelink trained and mentored Botswana camera operators, opening doors for local talent on productions that would once have flown in entire crews from abroad. For travellers who love the Delta's wildlife documentaries, much of what they've watched on screen over the past two decades carries his fingerprints — and the crews he helped develop will keep that tradition going.
For anyone planning a safari in the Okavango, his career is a reminder of how special the region is: a place extraordinary enough to sustain a whole filmmaking industry, and accessible via Maun, the same town where he spent his life working.
